Miss Bensons Beetle by Rachel Joyce
Author
Talent seems to run along the Joyce family line, with the actor Emily Joyce as her sister, it seems as if Rachel Joyce came into the world and couldn’t help but show off her writing talents.
Born in London in 1962, Rachel, along with her two sisters, spent her younger days growing up on a housing estate.
On her website, Rachel writes about spending happy hours making up new games and reading as many books as she could lay her hands on.
Even at that young age, Rachel had authors she gravitated to more than others. On her list of favourites was Beatrix Potter, Noel Streatfield and Joan Aiken, but even at this young age, writing was a draw.
Not many people can claim to have written their autobiography at eight years old.
She writes “…I was worried my talents would go unnoticed” Got to admire her confidence, even at that young age.
Rachel describes writing as her ‘haven’. And she kept at it, sending off a story to a publisher under a pseudonym, thinking it would give her an edge. Again, confidence in her own ability, amazing for one so young.
When it came time for higher study, Rachel chose Bristol University and it’s pretty clear that the only way to go for Rachel was to study English.
She had a few interesting jobs, none of them related to writing in any way. A nanny with bad cooking skills and an untidy house. A door-to-door salesman which, because of her reluctance to ring door bells, only lasted one morning and then in the eighties, a job as a barmaid in a trendy champagne bar in London, but again this job didn’t last long either. She refused to actually pour the champagne, and for a champagne bar, this really was a game changer.
Soon after, Rachel started down a road which was closer to her end goal, training at RADA then spending twenty years as a working actor with larger roles with the Royal National Theatre, Royal Court, and paying her dues (as they say) at the smaller less famous venues.
While Rachel was pregnant for the first time, she began to think about writing, starting with an idea for a radio drama, the idea of which she got after reading an article in a paper. Mentioning it to a producer friend, she recalls she received the best advice she had ever received. “Write it” She realised that she could have lots of great ideas, but until those ideas were in paper, they were just that. She needed to commit to what she wanted.
Since that first radio play, she has written many more, and this is how she started her career.
Moving on to writing bestsellers and winning awards, winning the 2021 Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize for Miss Bensons Beetle.
Married and with four children she now lives in Gloucestershire.
Rachel Joyce
Book
Margery Benson, a spinster in her mid forty, has a mid-life crisis, when after once again being ridiculed by the students in her cooking class, she steals the headmistresses’ boots and decides to do the thing she has wanted to for years.
Look for a beetle at the other side of the world.
Preparing for a trip to New Caledonia in 1950, was not an easy thing to do and as a women, even more difficult.
To help her, Miss Benson advertises for an assistant and after a meeting a few at a tea shop, she settles on one, who at the last minute lets her down.
Enter Miss Pretty.
A women totally opposite to Miss Benson, Miss Pretty is able to charm the birds off the trees and uses her skills, to get herself, and Miss Benson to New Caledonia in one peace.
Once there, they are stalked by an ex prisoner, oe of them gives birth and one of them dies.
Do they find the beetle, well ill let you find that out.
My Thoughts
This book is about friendship and a love between women that moves from one generation to another.
More than looking for a beetle, it shows how strangers from different backgrounds with different beliefs can bond in such a way that they overcome all their history and hang-ups.
After the second world war, it wasn’t just food that was rationed, there was a generation of women, who were left to grow old alone, with skills that once in demand a few years prior, now were swept aside.
Overlooked and disregarded, these women were dismissed and ridiculed, so when Miss Benson walks out of the school and tries to get support from the National History Museum, they thin she is a joke.
This invisibility cloak helps both women on their journey through the book.
I bloody loved this book, strong female characters that even though they go through the usual arc of finding themselves, has a lot of real emotions which make this book as good as it is.
The main characters are full and rounded with histories that make sense and help with the forward story.
Even the peripheral characters, no matter how short they appear in the story, have been given the same attention as the two main ones.
Yes to this book, and I give it a 5 egg rating.
I give it a 5 Egg rating
