I am a writer and a teacher, a reader and a viewer.
My first novel Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves, published by Penguin in 2017 and based on the life of my grandmother, is set in agricultural England in the 1940s and 1950s. It was shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction in 2018 and I was lucky enough to be chosen as a Writer in Residence at Gladstone’s Library in Wales. My short story Wires, set in Milan in 1926, was longlisted for the Royal Society of Literature’s W. S. Pritchett Prize in 2019. I am currently finishing a second novel, set in Northern Italy in the 1920s and 1930s.
Before writing fiction, I worked as an academic at Middlesex University, teaching and writing about 19th century, colonial and post-colonial literatures and histories of publishing and reading.
I have contributed reviews and articles to a wide range of magazines and journals including Sight and Sound, Radical Philosophy, English Literary History, New Left Review and the London Review of Books blog.
On this site, you can read more about Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves: reviews, interviews and pieces about the writing and the research process. I also post short fiction and non-fiction pieces, as well as criticism about books, TV and film.
I was born in London and have lived there most of my life.
The old John Barnes department store on Finchley Road just up the road from where I grew up
I grew up in West Hampstead, where the streets were full of big, shabby houses that were then mainly flat or room rents. I was the child of two very different immigrants, two runaways. My mum left Shropshire for London at sixteen, determined never to return. My dad left Karachi in the newly formed state of Pakistan in his mid-twenties to come and study. Both of them fell in love with a certain idea or dream of London. For myself growing up it took the form of walks on Hampstead Heath with a stop at the Coffee Cup cafe in Hampstead, and croissants in the Cosmo coffee house on Finchley Road, lots of museums and art galleries which I resented.
The Cosmo Restaurant on Finchley Road.
At school I was very, very good – till right near the end – and just brown enough to be one variety of the distinguishable different. At home I was bookish, always reading, always writing. English and history were the subjects I really loved and for a long time they competed painfully. I studied history and then English at Cambridge and then linguistics at Strathclyde in Glasgow. Over the next couple of years, I did a variety of short-term jobs while everyone told me that time was running out and I needed to decide who I wanted to be. On what appeared to be a whim and perhaps to avoid more prodding, I decided that I would do a PhD and become an academic. After some scary part-time teaching in Goldsmiths’ English Department at the University of London, which gave me a serious case of imposter-syndrome, I got a job at Middlesex University where I taught more or less happily for a number of years.
The beautiful Trent Park was one of the campuses where I taught
Protest against the closure of the philosophy department, 2010.
Over time, as has become familiar in many universities, our working conditions were severely degraded and when we were required – forced – to reapply for our jobs for the third time, I think, in less than five years, I decided to take voluntary redundancy and take the plunge into a new world.
At that point I had already started Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves, so the plunge wasn’t quite as cold as it could have been. I don’t think I knew it was going to be a novel then, but I was already obsessing about a world that was solid – there were books, articles, records, documents – and elusive. I was trying to ‘discover’ two women, one of whom was my grandmother, who were publicly writ large and clear for one very particular and extreme moment, but who spent most of their lives invisible. Writing a second novel now, which I am finding if anything more difficult than the first, I have finally recognised that this space where there is at once an abundance of detail and record, and also nothing about the exact world you wish to write about – because it doesn’t exist yet – is the place where I feel most uncomfortably at home.
Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves is a novel about two women – Elsie Boston and Rene Hargreaves. It begins in 1940 when Rene arrives from Manchester with a secret to work at Elsie’s smallholding on the Berkshire Downs. It follows the changing relationship between these working-class and unfashionably queer women over twenty years, through war, eviction and (maybe) murder. Most of the novel is set on the land. The characters journey through Britain in the post-war years, living and working precariously in Berkshire, Cumbria and Cornwall. They are determined to make a settled and private life on the land and finally seem to have found a home, when the past returns to haunt Rene. This precipitates a set of events that expose their lives to the law and the public gaze, and threaten their life together.
Readers reviewers have particularly enjoyed the relationship between the two main characters and how the English countryside is represented during a particular period – the 1940s and 1950s. The book’s narrative includes a strand which explores the world of silent British cinema – Rene adores films. This screen world is crucial to the crime that lies at the centre of the book and the trial that engulfs them.
The novel is loosely based on the life on my grandmother, the Miss Hargreaves of the title. You can read more about this below.
Prizes and Awards
Winner: Gladstone’s Library Writers in Residence 2018
Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2018 – Shortlist
The judges said: “Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves is a quietly beautiful and brilliant novel that captures the heart and essence of a love story in the years during and after the Second World War. Astonishingly, it is Rachel Malik’s debut, and her handling of the richness and simplicity of this story of farming life suggests that she is on the brink of a distinguished literary career. And this is no bucolic idyll but an unfolding of a plot that constantly twists and turns and surprises. A truly wonderful, memorable novel.”
I did a related short Q&A about writing historically
‘The outstanding read of 2018 for me was Rachel Malik’s Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves, the story of two women from the 1940s to the 1960s, their lives on the land and with each other. Tender, sometimes astonishing, always riveting, I simply loved this novel. It was shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize and for that reason I had the joy of reading it twice. A stunning debut novel.’ (Alistair Moffatt, Books of the Year, Scottish Review of Books)
Summer Books: Irish Times
‘I like to head off into curious spaces for holiday reading. By that I mean books I wouldn’t normally be interested in. I rarely read historical fiction but was intrigued by the loose auto-fictional elements of Rachel Malik’s Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves. “I think I was always aware that there were shadows, spaces at the table,” Malik wrote in an article about discovering her grandmother Rene’s clandestine past. When the author was in her 30s her mother told her that Rene hadn’t died young but had disappeared. She had run away from marriage and three kids to work as a landgirl on Starlight farm, where she met and lived with another woman, Elsie, and it seems they remained involved for a long time. Eventually Rene was hauled before the courts for allegedly murdering “Uncle Earnest”, a man who was not really an uncle the women were seemingly tasked to look after him on the farm. Rene is both a gender pioneer and a bit of a horrible wagon for abandoning her kids. The book is not only a whodunnit (or whydidyedoit?) but also a vivid exploration of family secrets uncovered and the effects of trauma, as well as a war story about women working the land and doing whatever they had to do to survive.’ June Caldwell, Books for the Beach and the Brain in The Irish Times
Media
Penguin website: ‘Uncovering my grandmother’s extraordinary secrets’, a piece I wrote Malik about how I came to write the novel.
Woman’s Hour, 28 April 2017 – Interview with Rachel Malik and reading from the novel
Press reviews
Sunday Times review, 30 April: an ‘unflamboyantly effective tale’; ‘this is a surprisingly moving account of hidden lives forced out of the shadows’
Daily Mail review, 21 April : ‘Part period piece, part courtroom drama, this is also a touching love story’
Sunday Telegraph, Stella magazine, 16 April, ‘We love’ selection
Red, Prima and Good Housekeeping magazines, April selection: ‘Breathtaking debut about two women’s friendship’ (Prima)
‘I really became immersed in the story and totally engaged with the two main characters, Rene and Elsie.
From the start, Elsie is an enigmatic character, cherishing her solitude and resisting intrusion from neighbours, seeing this as ‘encroachment’. At the same time, she has a ‘lonely power’ that proves strangely attractive to Rene: ‘Elsie wasn’t quite like other people, but that didn’t matter to Rene’. Elsie’s strangeness is communicated in small ways, such as by gestures. When Rene first arrives at Starlight Farm: ‘She had offered her hand to Elsie, and Elsie had reached out hers but it wasn’t a greeting – Elsie had reached out as if she were trapped and needed to be pulled out, pulled free’. Gradually, they find each meets a kind of need in the other – Elsie, for companionship and a conduit to the outside world, and Rene, for refuge from her past: “Elsie knew that Rene fitted. A stranger to be sure, but one who didn’t make her feel strange.’… This book is probably not everyone’s cup of tea (not that there isn’t plenty of tea drinking in it) but I absolutely fell in love with it.’
‘The core of the novel is the two characters, with Malik slowing building up detail about them. Rene’s past and her escape from her husband and children is classic historical novel material, but it is also at how the war could change lives in ways that would be irrevocably different when it was over….This is a slowly revealed and moving novel full of small details, with an appeal that stretches beyond its historical setting to anyone who enjoys reading about characters and carefully drawn relationships.’
‘I won’t say any more about the plot for fear of ruining it, as there is a surprising twist half way through, but this is a truly wonderful novel that is unexpected in so many ways. There is much left unsaid, and unexplored; glimpses are given of the women’s pasts and their relationship with one another that can be interpreted as the reader wishes. Were Elsie and Rene lovers, or was their contentment grounded in the satisfaction of a deep platonic bond? There is plenty of evidence for both readings, and it is up to us to decide what we feel best fits their characters. The period details are marvellous, and the depictions of countryside life and the characters found there are beautifully and realistically drawn. It is a thoughtful, intriguing and unusual tale of two women who fought against social and moral expectations to live a life that gave them the fulfilment their hearts longed for, carrying the weight of guilt, sorrow and blame along with them as they navigated a path through the barriers that stood in their way. What makes it even more powerful is the knowledge that Rachel Malik based this tale on the story of her own grandmother’s life, which can be read here (warning – this article does provide plot spoilers).
It makes you wonder how many more extraordinary stories there are, hidden within families, buried beneath layers of shame and embarrassment. A few newspaper clippings and a clutch of certificates can hint at so much, and yet still tell so little. It’s made me want to go digging into my own family history once more, and I already want to read this remarkable novel all over again. I can’t wait to see what Rachel Malik will write next!’
I cannot tell you how much I loved and enjoyed this book. Rachel Malik’s maternal grandmother was the inspiration – a woman who left a husband and three children (one of whom was Malik’s mother) and just got on a train and never looked back. She (Miss Hargreaves) became a Land Girl, working on farms in WW2, and was sent to Starlight Farm, where she met her soulmate, Miss Boston. They ran the little farm together until they were cheated out of it by a lie from the farmer next door who was on the county committee for categorisation of food production on farms during the war. They became itinerant farm workers, travelling from one farm to another, working for their keep and a roof over their heads until the late 1950s, when they settled in a small rented cottage in Cornwall.
As Malik tells you in the Afterward, this is a work of fiction, although the two characters are based on real people and her research traces the lives of the two women. But fiction or not, this is simply a magical book, even though the women are not really great talkers, so conversation is not the high spot of the book. The descriptions of life in the countryside, and the walks they take and the adventures they have are just wonderful. You know that they care for each other deeply, even though they do not speak about “love” or “closeness”, they just are. It is only half way though the book that a real threat arrives to rock the boat, and the book then changes it’s tone. I found myself reading faster because I needed to know how this would end, but also putting the book down because I didn’t want it to end. This is currently only available in hardback or on kindle – Penguin please note that I do hope it comes out in paperback because it needs to be on that front table in Waterstones! (Although the cover does not really lead you in, so perhaps a change there).
Recommended – it will continue to haunt me long after I pass it on.
I won’t give any more of the plot away, other than to say, it turns into a murder/mystery – and very good too! I got so attached to the characters that I cried toward the ending….always a good sign of a good read!
Malik has extrapolated an elegant and deeply moving work of fiction…
That these characters are more than figments of the author’s imagination is evident throughout. Malik tells her story, her grandmother’s story, with a gentle touch. Where this book might have had a whiff of gossipy tell-all, instead it is bound by the warmth of a confidence reluctantly shared. Malik tells the story cautiously, only hinting at secrets, almost testing the reader to see if she can trust you, so that you lean forward, careful in your attention and keen to know more.
… Malik’s achievement is to have applauded the small rebellion of these women against the expectations of their time and place. She has redeemed these ‘curious’ women to normality. Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves celebrates the love, respect and loyalty at the core of their relationship.
While browsing the display tables and shelves of London’s bookshops, I was hoping to find another story like The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry. Not a replica of the characters, setting or plot, but something matching its tone of fresh mixed with nostalgia. Something well-written and atmospheric. When Rachel (Book Snob) mentioned she was reading Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves, I asked her if it was good. Little did I know just how perfectly it would fit the bill.
The prologue reveals two characters, the first is a woman scanning the landscape through a cottage window. The second is a woman on the verge of freedom outside the gates of Holloway prison.
It would have been easy to sensationalize the story of Elsie Boston and Rene Hargreaves, but there is none of that here. It’s a beautiful story with a bite; a slow simmer that turns into something of a boil. And to learn that it’s based in reality adds to the fascination – Rene Hargreaves is the author’s grandmother.
It is hard to write a review of a book I loved as much as I loved this one, a part of me just wants to tell you to buy it immediately. I haven’t read many novels published this year and this was an impulse buy, when it arrived I decided I wanted to read it right away.
Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves is Rachel Malik’s debut novel, and it is a hugely impressive beginning to what I can only suppose will be a very successful publishing career. The story is based heavily on the life of the author’s maternal grandmother; Rene Hargreaves. While the author makes it quite clear that this is a work of fiction, she kept the names the same and all the incidents in the book seem to have come straight from Rene’s life – and it is a wonderful story spanning more than twenty years….
There is a night time expedition to the White Horse carved into the hillside, covered with turf because of the war the pair uncover it walk down the hill to gaze at it and walk back up to cover it back up, they laugh and swap confidences. Soon the two women can’t imagine a life a part. Rene is warm and sociable, has a great love of cinema, and slowly she begins to change Elsie, helping her overcome her almost crippling shyness.
Together they endure sadness and hardship; a conniving neighbour helps the Ministry for Agricultural take Starlight from Elsie, so he can get his hands on the land – there is nothing they can do. Determined to work the land they love and stay together; the pair become itinerant farm workers and move from farm to farm across the country – starting in Cumbria and ending in Cornwall in the late 1950s. It is a hard life – they no longer have the comfort of their wireless, though they do get to live in a series of tiny farm cottages, dividing the household tasks between them. Sometimes Rene has to work away at other farms, looking forward to Friday evening when she comes home. This though is nothing to the battles that lie ahead of them.
As they begin to think of settling for good at Wheal Rock in a small Cornish community, with a dog a cat and a wireless, part of Rene’s past arrives, threatening their way of life – and much more. Their lives will be turned upside down, held up for examination by the media, and subject to a high-profile court case.
“At dusk though, the exterior began to change: the chimney smoke wreathed and twisted against the darkening sky, the rickety extensions turned opaque and the dishevelled garden grew blurry and indistinct. By the time it was dark and the lamps glowed orange in the windows, the cottage seemed invulnerable. Rene loved returning when it was dark, her first sight of the lights through the trees as she cycled up the lane. Coming home: Elsie in the kitchen window, standing at the sink, washing, waiting. Sometimes it felt to Rene as if they would always live at Wheal Rock; it was foolish, but sometimes she couldn’t help herself.”
What I particularly loved about this book was how strongly rooted in the British countryside it is, showing a fierce love and understanding for the countryside and the lives lived by agricultural workers. The relationship between Elsie and Rene is sensitively and delicately portrayed – we never know exactly how far their relationship progressed, whether they in fact were lovers – it doesn’t matter at all – their commitment to their shared way of life is what is important.
To think, that this incredible story was hidden away inside Rachel Malik’s family history, waiting for her to discover it. What an exciting discovery it must have been, and how lucky we are that she chose to share it in this way. (Oh, and the cover art for this hardback edition is just perfect).
Susan Osborne, A life in books (best books of 2018)
‘In her historical note at the back of the book, Malik explains that Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves is based very loosely on her grandmother’s life, knowledge which makes her novel all the more poignant for this is not always a happy story. Smoothly shifting perspective back and forth between Else and Rene, threading their memories through her narrative, Malik combines quietly understated prose with appropriately cinematic, vivid episodes. The passage in which Rene and her friend stumble onto a film set, charming the crew and triggering a life-long passion for the movies, is quite magical. The relationship between Elsie and Rene is delicately sketched, its changes subtly shaded in. Their lives were so very ordinary, except perhaps in one or two respects sums up these two women beautifully as it must have for many other couples like them, discreetly living their lives together. As Elsie says in court to much sniggering derision We were rich, and indeed they were. A touching, thoroughly absorbing novel – I’m looking forward to reading what Malik comes up with next.’
Emma Moyle, Books and Wine Gums (best books of 2018)
‘The relationship which forms between Elsie and Rene (‘Bert’) is both beautifully simple and complex: a connection based on unspoken understanding, a relationship which doesn’t fit easily within conventional definitions of women’s behaviour at this time. After a period apart,
‘They agreed and accorded and yes-ed and of-coursed, but they weren’t in harmony. Elsie was wordier than usual, still speaking the paragraphs she had composed so carefully for her weekly letters.’
These are women on the margins, at times regarded with a degree of suspicion by some around them, and in the latter stages of the novel, their relationship is subject to the sometimes prurient scrutiny of a society which is uncomfortable when faced with anything different. However, Elsie and Rene refuse to compromise, pursuing the life they choose together, and they make much of the little they have, believing that ‘if you have all you want, you are rich.’ Having a female relationship like this at the heart of a novel was both refreshing and beautiful.’
‘Elsie Boston is not keen on opening up her farm and her life to a stranger. But a Land Girl is coming to Starlight farm to help Elsie during the war. Little does Elsie realise that Rene Hargreaves will change her life irrevocably.
There is a gentleness to the story, one that allows the reader to be pulled along with the story. Time passes by swiftly, so much so that months or years can pass in a single chapter. This speeding up of time means that the story has a slight surreal quality to it. One minute Rene Hargreaves has arrived at Starlight Farm, the war in full swing, then the next the war is over, though it seems that Rene is still only the new girl…..
The story is engaging. During the first half of the novel not much happens yet everything happens. We see Rene and Elsie meet, become friends, become inseparable. We see them go through winters and summers, through personal trials and through the everyday mundane aspects of life. The book is well written, the prose at times almost poetic…’
From the start, Elsie is an enigmatic character, cherishing her solitude and resisting intrusion from neighbours, seeing this as ‘encroachment’. At the same time, she has a ‘lonely power’ that proves strangely attractive to Rene: ‘Elsie wasn’t quite like other people, but that didn’t matter to Rene’. Elsie’s strangeness is communicated in small ways, such as by gestures. When Rene first arrives at Starlight Farm: ‘She had offered her hand to Elsie, and Elsie had reached out hers but it wasn’t a greeting – Elsie had reached out as if she were trapped and needed to be pulled out, pulled free’. Gradually, they find each meets a kind of need in the other – Elsie, for companionship and a conduit to the outside world, and Rene, for refuge from her past: “Elsie knew that Rene fitted. A stranger to be sure, but one who didn’t make her feel strange.’… This book is probably not everyone’s cup of tea (not that there isn’t plenty of tea drinking in it) but I absolutely fell in love with it.’
