The theme is enticing. A massive Sapphic crush at an elite girls’ boarding school, with lashings of sex and agonised longing. The debut from K Patrick, one of this year’s Granta best of young British novelists, Mrs S promises classic hothouse drama then segues into an experiment with form that frequently converts expectation to bemusement.
A nameless 22-year-old teacher from Australia arrives at a nameless posh school where the nameless girls worship a nameless dead author. The narrator, a lesbian woman, has taken on the position of matron. “Miss”, as she is known, befriends the housemistress, who is also queer, and pretty quickly clocks the headmaster’s wife. This Mrs S is the only character who is halfway named and is an exemplar of heteronormative femininity in her skirts and scarves. Let the throbbing begin.
