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If you can imagine Frances Hodgson Burnett (The Secret Garden; The Little Princess) rewritten in Cockney and embellished with the "coarse language" that certain television programs warn us about, you pretty much have NOT ALL TARTS. The story is told in the voice of a seven year old girl growing up in Soho, a raffish London district, in the cafe owned by her foster parents. Her birth mother, known as the Perfumed Lady, is a bit of a mystery (and this is the only mystery) but definitely a drunk and a prostitute. Sound grim? It isn't. This is not the London of the young Krays, but a warm-hearted and sentimental portrait of a London demi-monde where almost everyone save the pimps has a heart of gold. What redeems this book is the narrator, Rosie, who views the fairly horrific scene around her with a kind of cool innocence that arouses the protective instincts of practically everyone and who relates her adventures in an entertaining and largely comprehensible version of Cockney. (Though, I admit, being "Brahms" did stump this Canadian until I thought of Brahms and Liszt.) This book won the Harry Bowling Prize, which is given for a first adult novel set in London that follows in the story tradition of Harry Bowling, lately deceased. This fact may explain what I found the greatest mystery about the book---why Granger did not clean up the language a little bit and issue it as a juvenile, which it essentially is. As it stands, many adults may find it sweet, if a bit like the candy floss Rosie is so fond of, a little of which goes a long way.
Reviewed by Yvonne Klein, August 2002
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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