''Sadler's Birthday'' is the debut novel by novelist Rose Tremain, published in 1976. After six rejection slips Tremain was then advanced £350 for the novel by publisher Macdonald. As Tremain recalls at her age of 28: "

Angus Wilson Sir Angus Frank Johnstone-Wilson, CBE (11 August 191331 May 1991) was an English novelist and short story writer. He was one of England's first openly gay authors. He was awarded the 1958 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for ''The Middle Age of ...

wrote a generous front-cover puff, and the novel was widely noticed and quietly praised...A refreshing little shower of success was suddenly falling on me".

Plot

Jack Sadler is 76 years old lives alone in a big neglected house in

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

, his only companion being a nameless dog. He reminisces about his life and ponders on his mortality. He spent the most of his life in the same house where his mother was a

chambermaid A maid, or housemaid or maidservant, is a female domestic worker. In the Victorian era domestic service was the second largest category of employment in England and Wales, after agricultural work. In developed Western nations, full-time maids ...

. Jack then became a

butler A butler is a person who works in a house serving and is a domestic worker in a large household. In great houses, the household is sometimes divided into departments with the butler in charge of the dining room, wine cellar, and pantry. Some a ...

for the house's owners: the childless Colonel Basset and Madge. During the war an eleven-year boy called Tom was evacuated from London to live for five years at the house where Jack took him under his wing, where their relationship developed into love. After the war Tom returned to London with his mother, and Jack lost contact with Tom. Colonel and Madge were killed on their way to the Queen's coronation that morning in London; Jack was then left the house and their inheritance...

Reception

Joyce Carol Oates Joyce Carol Oates (born June 16, 1938) is an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1963, and has since published 58 novels, a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and non-fiction. Her novels '' Bla ...

writing in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' praises the novel "a rather special work, a simple novel that dwells lovingly upon the details of simple lives without condescension or bitterness. In fact, one might wish for more emotion, for more anger. There are times when seems that the ideal English novel is an artifact of a certain number of cautious, well‐crafted pages that manage to offend no one, while stressing the oldest and most conservative of virtues‐stability, acceptance, stoicism, a sort of wry self‐deprecatory humour that translates into courage. Nevertheless ''Sadler's Birthday'' is well worth reading, and Rose Tremain a highly promising young novelist.

Kirkus Reviews ''Kirkus Reviews'' (or ''Kirkus Media'') is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893–1980). The magazine is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fic ...

writes "Through flashbacks, which flicker off and on in random chronological order within his wavering consciousness, Jack's career is reconstructed...Prepare for a jolt when you stumble upstairs with Jack, in this most mellow of diversions discreetly laced with bitters"The life of Jack Sadler, an aged butler who has inherited the mansion of his childless employers, unrolls smooth as...
Retrieved 16/2/2022.

References

{{reflist 1976 British novels Novels set in Norfolk 1976 debut novels Novels set in mansions and country houses