A Bit of Singing and Dancing.
This collection of short stories is a masterful evocation of people who are living lives of quiet desperation. Set in a timeless and usually anonymous world, these stories evoke the quiet tragedy and true horror of life.
In some of the stories a death has occurred before the story begins and is referred to in a flashback of memory (as in 'Missie', 'The Custodian' and 'A Bit of Singing and Dancing): in the rest it happens as part of the main plot.
Susan Hill reminds us through this that no one can avoid death and that it is often violent, unfair and unexpected. It seems, at times, that her characters are set against impossible odds. Happiness is fleeting and somehow more alluring and extraordinary because it is so rare.
Sometimes, as in 'The Custodian' and 'A Bit of Singing and Dancing' joy comes because of another's death, but more frequently it is cut short by it. The reader is often given the feeling that the world's timing is cruel as circumstances merge together to make the characters feel fated. Col in 'The Badness Within Him' dares to feel hatred and Fate punishes him for it, as it does Miss Bartlett in 'How Soon Can Leave" who dares to seek independence.
In many of the stories at least one character, generally a misfit, is made larger than life by being placed under close scrutiny. The character is usually a child or an adult that is 'not quite right' due to some physical or mental handicap or someone who is trapped. In each story these distressed gentlefolk are attempting to justify life or are trying to escape from smothering commitments. Sometimes they do escape but at a great cost;in other stories they do not and are left in the quiet despair of an unfulfilled life.
Some have said that these stories are depressing but although sad, invariably the characters shown fortitude and the strength to go on or to break free of the prison; they have made for themselves. They face death or the continuity of a melancholic life, not in a fearful, petulant manner but with stoicism and resolve.