Donald, Anabel 1944-

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DONALD, Anabel 1944-

(Serena Galt, Kate Rhys)

PERSONAL: Born June 24, 1944, in India; daughter of Frederick R. (a diplomat) and Veronica (Rice) Stockwell; married Miles Donald (a lecturer and writer), August 6, 1965 (divorced, January, 1981); children: Dominic, St. John. Education: St. Anne's College, Oxford, B.A., 1965, M.Litt., 1968.

ADDRESSES: Home—200 Wells Rd., Malvern, Worcester WR14 4HB, England. Office—Malvern Girl's College, Avenue Rd., Malvern, Worcester, England. Agent—PFD, Drury House, 34-43 Russell St., London WC2B 5HA, England.

CAREER: University of Texas, Austin, instructor in English literature, 1967-70; South-East London Technical College, London, England, lecturer in English and communications, 1972-75; teacher of English at and headmistress of school in London, 1975-80; Malvern Girls' College, Malvern, England, English teacher, 1980—.

WRITINGS:

novels

Hannah at Thirty-Five (novel), Hodder & Stoughton (London, England), 1984.

Poor Dear Charlotte: A Novel, Hodder & Stoughton (London, England), 1985, Mercury House (San Francisco, CA), 1988.

Smile, Honey: A Novel, Mercury House (San Francisco, CA), 1989.

Be Nice, Jonathan Cape (London, England), 2002.

"notting hill" series

An Uncommon Murder, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1992.

In at the Deep End, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1994.

The Glass Ceiling, Macmillan (London, England), 1994, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1995.

The Loop, Macmillan (London, England), 1996.

Destroy Unopened, Macmillan (London, England), 1999, Pan Books, 1999.

Also author of Paradise Flower and Double Game; author of romance novels under pseudonyms Serena Galt and Kate Rhys.

SIDELIGHTS: During a writing career that has spanned more than three decades, Anabel Donald has written popular novels of family life, as well as the "Notting Hill" mystery series featuring the female sleuth Alex Tanner. In 2002 she published a novel of female dystopia, Be Nice, which was inspired both by William Golding's classic Lord of the Flies and Donald's own experiences in the classroom, on both sides of the desk. After being educated in a convent boarding school in Oxford, England, Donald earned degrees at St. Anne's College, Oxford, and pursued a career in teaching. During the late 1960s Donald taught at the University of Austin, Texas, but upon her return to England she served as both a lecturer and headmistress of schools in London, Malvern, and Doncaster.

Donald wrote several mainstream novels before investigating the mystery genre. In her debut novel, Hannah at Thirty-Five, she explores a year in the life of a newly divorced woman. Left by her working-class, professional athlete husband—for a woman who is older and wealthier—Hannah eventually meets a happily compatible mate and learns to temper her eccentric idealism with an acceptance of reality. "It is self-discovery of a pretty conventional kind," wrote Times Literary Supplement critic Linda Taylor, "but the novel is likeable and breezy…. [Donald] has a forthright, spiky style of writing."

Donald followed Hannah at Thirty-Five with Poor Dear Charlotte: A Novel, the story of a staid and insecure head of the English department at a British boarding school for girls. Raised from the age of ten by a misogynist father following her parents' divorce, Charlotte devotes herself single-mindedly to her job, avoiding members of the opposite sex at all cost, as they produce "a consuming fear that paralysed and incapacitated her." On a school-sponsored trip to the Soviet Union, however, she falls prey to the charms of the school's new headmaster and her fears abate. They secretly continue the affair when they return to campus until their activities are discovered. Charlotte then resigns and heads to London, where she becomes an assistant in her brother's record company. The novel then follows Charlotte through the world of rock 'n' roll hype, closing with the heroine setting out for America, her future stretching before her "like a Grand Canyon of opportunity." London Times reviewer John Nicholson commented that Donald has "a cool and satirical vision, real wit and humanity, which ought eventually to make her writing appeal to a very wide audience." But a Publishers Weekly reviewer found only the first half of the novel "satisfying."

Donald's savvy sleuth Alex Tanner, "an appealing protagonist" wrote a Publishers Weekly reviewer, comes to life in a handful of novels that appeared in the 1990s. A London television researcher and part-time private investigator, Tanner inevitably finds herself involved in sticky situations, such as the unsolved murder of Lord Sherwin in An Uncommon Murder and the not-so-accidental drowning of a English prep-school student in In at the Deep End. Writing about the latter, Judy Sokoll of School Library Journal praised the novel's atmosphere, "sophisticated and witty" dialog, and "fast-paced" plot. Donald's 1994 title, The Glass Ceiling, which a Publishers Weekly critique gave "full marks for the sheer cleverness," deals with Tanner's investigation of a possible serial killer. With The Loop Tanner crosses the Atlantic to Chicago, where on a business trip she is asked to find a missing Englishman. Upon her return, Tanner investigates a packet of unusual love letters in Destroy Unopened, in what a Tangled Web reviewer praised for its "zest, … wit and shrewd observation." According to Barbara Franchi of Reviewing the Evidence, who called Tanner a "well-drawn character," the earlier novels, like Destroy Unopened, are "well worth searching for."

While repeatedly teaching Golding's Lord of the Flies, a novel about a group of boys shipwrecked on a desert island, which is required reading in English high schools, Donald often encountered the question, "Would it be different if they were girls?" "I wrote my book, Be Nice, to explore that question," the author wrote in the London Daily Telegraph. As readers of Be Nice learn, Donald does not view girls as being "nicer" than boys, just different in their power struggles. The group of twenty-one girls ranging in age from eleven to eighteen, winners of an essay contest sponsored by a tampon maker, survive a plane crash in the South Pacific. Donald recounts this tale through the first-person voices of several of the girls, capturing the slang and level of thought of the girls, which reflects the society in which they have been raised. As Laurence Phelan explained in the London Independent on Sunday, "It's exposure to materialism, compensation culture, media hysteria and celebrity worship that has already damaged them, and will cause their undoing when they're left to fend for themselves." And it does, as "the ways in which power is taken (and bestowed) are richly mined," wrote Toronto Globe & Mail critic Marnie Woodrow. By the time rescuers arrive, three "survivors" are dead. London Observer critic Nichola McAllister pointed out both the strengths and weaknesses of the novel: "Scathing in its depiction of society, Be Nice is a novel brimming with accusations and ideas, the resonance of which cannot hide behind the disappointingly weak narrative." Even so, she continued, this "tale of manipulation—both within the group and from outside … has the power to linger long after the story is finished." For just this reason, Phelan suggested that high school students should read Donald's female version of Lord of the Flies along with Golding's original.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

periodicals

Antioch Review, fall, 1988, review of Poor Dear Charlotte: A Novel, p. 531; winter, 1990, review of Smile, Honey, p. 124.

Armchair Detective, summer, 1993, review of An Uncommon Murder, pp. 97+.

Bloomsbury Review, January, 1990, review of Smile, Honey: A Novel, p. 11.

Book World, January 7, 1990, review of Smile, Honey, p. 9.

Daily Telegraph (London, England), August 10, 2002, Anabel Donald, "We Only Get the Girls That We Deserve."

Globe & Mail (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), November 23, 2002, Marnie Woodrow, review of Be Nice.

Guardian (London, England), October 31, 1993, review of In at the Deep End, p. 29.

Independent (London, England), October 19, 2002, Liz Jensen, "Be Warned, Young Madam," review of Be Nice, p. 39.

Independent on Sunday (London, England), August 10, 2003, Laurence Phelan, "Tell Me Honestly—Does My Coconut Look Big in This?" review of Be Nice, p. 19.

Kirkus Reviews, February 1, 1988, review of Poor Dear Charlotte, p. 143; August 1, 1989, review of Smile, Honey, p. 1092; December 15, 1992, review of An Uncommon Murder, p. 1537; July 1, 1994, review of In at the Deep End, p. 887; August 1, 1995, review of The Glass Ceiling, p. 1061.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, January 13, 1991, review of Smile, Honey, p. 10.

New Directions for Women, November, 1991, review of Smile, Honey, p. 24.

New York Times Book Review, April 24, 1988, Daniel Stern, review of Poor Dear Charlotte, p. 9; October 8, 1989, Stephen McCauley, review of Smile, Honey, p. 13; November 6, 1994, Marilyn Stasio, review of In at the Deep End, p. 41.

Observer (London, England), February 7, 1988, review of Smile Honey, p. 25; January 9, 1994, review of In at the Deep End, p. 19; August 4, 2002, Nichola McAllister, "When Girls Get Cast Away," review of Be Nice, p. 16.

Publishers Weekly, January 22, 1988, Sybil Steinberg, review of Poor Dear Charlotte, p. 105; August 25, 1989, review of Smile, Honey, p. 50; October 26, 1990, review of Smile, Honey, p. 65; January 4, 1993, review of An Uncommon Murder, p. 62; August 22, 1994, review of In at the Deep End, p. 44; July 10, 1995, review of The Glass Ceiling, p. 47.

School Library Journal, January 25, 1995, Judy Sokoll, review of In at the Deep End, p. 145.

Small Press Review, June, 1990, review of Smile, Honey, p. 11.

Times (London, England), August 8, 1985; July 26, 2003, review of Be Nice, p. 18.

Times Educational Supplement, July 26, 2002, Hilary Wilce, "Shifting Sands on an Island," review of Be Nice, p. 24.

Times Literary Supplement, April 27, 1984, December 20, 1985; April 22, 1988, Mary Furness, review of Smile, Honey, p. 452.

Washington Post Book World, January 7, 1990, p. 9.