The Greatcoat by Helen Dunmore

 The Greatcoat cover

The Greatcoat by Helen Dunmore was published in 2012. When I read the blurb I thought it would be a good book to read around about Halloween – and it was, I really enjoyed it. Having said that, this might be a disappointment to people who are really keen on very creepy tales, of the spine-tingling variety, they’ll probably find this a bit tame.

The setting is Yorkshire, the winter of 1952. Philip Carey is a young doctor just setting up in his first job as a GP and he and his wife Isabel haven’t been married long. He has trawled the area looking for a place for them to rent, until they can afford to buy a house of their own. The post-war housing situation is desperate and he feels lucky to have found the two rooms with a tiny kitchen and shared toilet that they end up renting. Isabel isn’t so impressed though as the place is freezing, dark and depressing and as Philip doesn’t want her to work she’s stuck in it on her own while he works hard – often night and day. The landlady lives upstairs and constantly walks around, every footstep being heard downstairs, and Isabel is sure the landlady goes into their flat whenever she goes out to the shops.

Philip is one of those people who hogs the bedclothes, one night Isabel wakes up freezing and decides to get up and look for something she can put over her side of the bed to warm her up. In a high cupboard she finds an old RAF greatcoat, it’s perfect for her purpose.

The next night she’s woken up by the sound of stones rattling off the window and when she opens the curtains there’s an airman standing there and so begins a gentle haunting although Isabel thinks he’s just an airman who might have known someone who lived there previously.

This is a very quick read, just a novella really because although it has 256 pages the margins are large as is the print. I think in what I think of as a normal paperback this would probably only have been about 90 pages.

Sadly Helen Dunmore died earlier this year but she left behind twelve novels, so I have nine more opportunities to enjoy her company.

4 thoughts on “The Greatcoat by Helen Dunmore

  1. Helen Dunmore is an author I would dearly love to appreciate. I’m fairly sure I’ve read The Siege and that put me off, though I can’t remember why. Just scrolling through her books, the titles and covers are so enticing and I must give her another try. This short one sounds ideal to start off with.

  2. This does sound like a good Halloween read. I haven’t read it yet, but I’ve enjoyed a few of Helen Dunmore’s other books, particularly Exposure.

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