It’s not exaggeration to say that she hasn’t actually lived, that the personality she might have become was murdered along with her brother in early childhood.Ī Narrow Door is the path that all women take to succeed in the male world. She moves from one thing to the next with no fixed goal other than survival. She has no friendships and feels that she is incapable of love, even for her own daughter. She is so effective in the theatre of placating male egos that she shows nobody who or what she is and, in repressing her self, gradually loses that person. She muses on all the ways she has used her feminine beauty to clear barriers, with varying levels of guilt (though always success, because…). There is an emphasis on the smiles that she has pinned on her pained and frightened face in order to please, in order to keep that door open at least the width of a forced grin. She has made herself small and unassuming, inconspicuous except for the blatant fact of her gender in opposition to those around her. This is the path that Rebecca Buckfast has taken to success.

One has to be small, and perhaps devious, to fit through it. Note the title: it is not the only door, it is a door but it is narrow, thin, hidden, difficult. And she’s managed to open a door for girls to follow her into this male space by integrating the school of which, through not altogether savory methods, she is named Head. She has succeeded against all the usual odds as well as quite a few odd specific challenges.

This is the timely story of a woman who has succeeded in a male world, possibly the most exclusively male world left in this century - the hoary testosterone-soaked halls of British education. This book has gone right to the top of my favorites list. I will admit to being small enough to feel jealous of her skill when I open her books. Her writing prowess, her vast breadth of knowledge, her wit and open-eyed clarity all make for fascinating reads.

Joanne harris a narrow door