I love the tone and style and substance of the writing. When it’s humming along on all cylinders, it reminds me of the prose of Thomas Berger, who is one of my favorite modern writers. I think the opening paragraphs are particularly fine overall.

There is a great deal to admire in this story. It is rich and dense in texture, full of allusions, making points and sparking ideas left, right and centre.

Much of Bradley’s fiction, while located in a perfectly rational universe, involves one startling incongruity, or fantastic element. I’m reminded time and again of Marcel Aymé (whose work I cannot recommend too highly). Here, of course, it’s the clash between the permissive neighbours, with their unblinking acceptance of free love, and Cissy’s unreflective, unbending insistance on traditional marital fidelity.

The central idea of the story is the clash between these two irreconcilable world-views. There are several scenes in which we witness them colliding, and I felt that these were the most vividly and effectively written: the dialogue was spotless and they carried absolute conviction. The author confronts us with the irresistible force meeting the unmovable obstacle, and it is like iron striking flint.

The ground is meticulously prepared, too. I particularly liked Cissy and Ken’s pillow-talk scene after the first meeting with the neighbours, where Ken is evasive and Cissy sure that something has gone awry. By using effective devices such as these, the author keeps us reading, searching for explanations, questioning all the time.

 We’re witnessing a clash of principles (or prejudices), and perhaps a clash of religions - a war of the gods, if you want. We’re perhaps being teased with the thought that religions are just clumps of prejudices - but teased, no more than that.

Lastly - and here I’m going beyond the FT remit as usual - I wanted to agonize a little about the way this story resolves, or doesn’t resolve.

The story ends by emphasizing that all Cissy wants is to get out of this situation. She’s an escapist at heart. She cannot negotiate, argue or in any way deal with the problem posed by her neighbours. It’s a case of shutters down.

Equally, the neighbours show absolutely no understanding of why their conduct might give Cissy the least trouble.

In a way, this stalemate was reached early on in the story. Do the subsequent developments really take the characters any further? Could the story have ended equally well after the first episode of infidelity between Peggy and Ken? What emerges thereafter, except further exasperation?

The story is deliberately open-ended, as it is entitled to be. When stories refuse to resolve, we are pointed back to the point of conflict, and made to think and re-think.

And so I find myself straying into deep waters: part of me would like Cissy to have an area of doubt, of ambiguity - perhaps even temptation.

But at the moment, Cissy is a rock, totally impermeable and inflexible. She feels annoyance, but she never ever questions. If she were turned to soap (and in my darkest moments, I might briefly entertain the thought), I wouldn’t pay extra for it.

Whether that would improve the message, or destroy it, is not for me to say.

In summary: this story is a conversation-piece, at once congenial and provocative, that raises dozens of questions.

PleaseCain
(The Fishtank)

The subject matter is challenging, and even though you date the story nicely with all of the post-war touches, the topics seem relevant for the present day, at least here in the States.  I admire that.  The Roths are funny, too.