nospin

This 1934 novel has a plethora of characters inhabiting a small English town. The descriptive language and characterizations are done with a wonderful sparse tone that speaks volumes.

"Johnson’s dictum that nobody but a donkey wrote for anything except money was as true today as it had ever been and always would be, but how few authors owned to the fact so simply! They either told you that something stronger than themselves compelled them to write, or else that they felt they had a message to give the world."

 

  

Miss Bundle has written a book featuring her neighbors as the cast of characters. She publishes the book under a pseudonym, John Smith, and watches how her neighbors seek to find and destroy the author. 

Miss Bundle keeps silent during all the uproar about her book. Something today's authors would do well to emulate.