Jean’s personal life is equally nonstimulating, as she shares a joyless home with her agoraphobic and needy mother, and she finds a welcome respite in her growing attachment to the Tilbury family. Given the social patterns of 1950s Britain, Jean’s beat consists chiefly of feature pieces of appeal to housewives, money-saving tips, recipes, and the like. When the opportunity arises to investigate this intriguing virgin birth, Jean Swinney is eager to take on the assignment it will be a nice distraction from her usual humdrum work. When the suburban North Kent Echo runs a story on parthenogenesis in small animals, it gets a curious letter to the editor in response: "I have always believed my own daughter (now ten) to have been born without the involvement of any man," writes Mrs. In the spirit of Barbara Pym's novels and the classic film Brief Encounters, Chambers provides an updated portrait of the vaunted British upper lip and its associated postwar values.
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