Riceyman Steps

In the "great metropolitan industrial district" of East London, Riceyman Steps lead from King's Cross Road to Riceyman Square. Here in this busy neighborhood, Henry Earlforward, the proprietor of a secondhand bookstore, takes a keen interest in Violet Arb, the widowed owner of a nearby confectionary shop. The middle-aged shopkeepers marry, but their chance for late-in-life happiness is increasingly shadowed by Henry's compulsive miserliness. Violet slowly realizes that her husband views everyday necessities -- heating, electricity, even food -- as extravagances to be resisted through self-denial. Starved for love as well as physical nourishment, the couple's only hope for survival lies with Elsie, their maid, and her warm-hearted generosity. Winner of the 1924 James Tait Black Memorial Prize, England's oldest literary award, Riceyman Steps weaves an atmospheric re-creation of London's harsh post-World War I mood. Its powerful exploration of sexual hunger and repression, written simply and with a deceptively light ironic tone, offers a compelling story of alienation, thwarted passion, and obsession.