Queen's Court

This clever little social comedy, full of wit and bon mots, gracefully obscures the small but important struggles of a widow to returning to live in Montreal from the West Coast after the death of her husband. What makes it really interesting is that the author, a man of mature years himself, creates, in Louise Bingham, a first-person narrating woman in her 60s who is self-aware and wise in the ways of the world. His imagining of her smart, savvy and ironic mind is full of respect and kicks sand in the face of those who denigrate appropriating voice. She sizes up and deals with the variety of men, women, and situations that Montreal throws at her and emerges in elegant control.

The texture of Phillips’ writing is extremely interesting. Louise sees the world with a fresh and accurate eye. Describing a restaurant greeter she says: “I … was shown to a table by a woman who had obviously taken great pains to coax her hair into a semblance of post-coital disarray.” The novel doubles its ironic viewpoint because Louise is constantly recalling what her husband, who also had a sharp eye, would have said about people and situations. So, when Louise runs up against a shady antiques dealer who is her neighbour in the apartment building that gives the novel its title, or when she is negotiating the difficulties of a best friend who intends to gently force for her into a Westmount lifestyle, or when she is confronting the difficulty of her son’s homosexuality (which is difficult because of his inappropriate choice of partners) there are really two voices commenting on the situation.

Readers will laugh and smile all the way through Queen’s Court; it actually offers a really wonderful picture of a mature widow running her world.