The prolific novelist, short-story writer and children’s author Jane Gardam, who has died aged 96, had a taste for the absurd and an extraordinary facility for characterisation and social comedy. Accused once of being a “muslin and tea party writer”, she shot back: “I’m more hair-cloth and gin.” It was a remark that deftly summarised two features of her work: religion and the more subversive side of middle-class life.
Gardam’s commitment to literary experimentation was evident from early on. She hated the idea of writing as a genteel occupation, and set out to challenge both herself and her readers. She did this partly in terms of form: Crusoe’s Daughter (1985) ends with a playlet; The Queen of the Tambourine (1991) is epistolary; the denouement of Faith Fox (1996) features the prayers muttered in church by various characters. Her much praised short-story collection Missing the Midnight (1997) explores the many permutations of the ghost story.
