Pregnant and kicked out by her father, 27-year-old Jane Graham takes a bug-infested room in a dingy boarding house in London – the only sort of place she feels she deserves. She nevertheless makes the room habitable and gradually meets the other inmates of the house, some of them outcasts from respectable society like herself: the nasty landlady, black guitarist John in the next room, would-be novelist and troubled writer Toby downstairs, the prostitutes in the basement. Although tempted to abort the baby she decides to keep it, and starts to feel excited at the prospect. Then she falls in love...

Lynne Reid Banks was stunned by the novel's glowing reception. 'This is an angry tale in many ways, with an inextinguishable fire of authenticity,' enthusiastically commented the Independent on Sunday well into the twenty-first century. The L-Shaped Room was to become a perennial classic which appeared to resonate everywhere, and Lynne realised over the years that people found reading her novel a deeply personal and unforgettable experience.

'Jane's struggle to cope is a journey of self-discovery and independence...a wistful and haunting period piece...' The Times

'This was the first grown-up book I read apart from the dirty bits in The Carpet Baggers and every 14-year-old should be made to read it. It tackles the lot; loneliness, race, sex and growing up. I never read books twice but I feel like tracking this one down again.' Jenny Eclair, Daily Express

'Unflinching in its boarding-house detail, and strikingly modern in its fury at the "social conditioning" that made its heroine an outcast; it shocked and sold...' The Independent

'Written in pre-Pill days when motherhood really was a fate worse than death, the shame and tension in Reid Bank's ground-breaking novel may seem incomprehensible to today's sexually active youngsters...' Val Hennessy, Daily Mail

The movie version of The L-Shaped Room became just as celebrated. The plot stayed much the same but Jane was turned into a Frenchwoman – played by sultry Leslie Caron – while Toby morphed into a Yorkshireman, in the shape of lean and brooding young hellraiser Tom Bell. The film, in atmospheric monochrome and accompanied by a swelling Brahms concerto, came out later in 1962 and was viewed as very frank – 'Sex is not a forbidden word!' promised the posters – especially in America, where many movie houses simply refused to run it. The film of The L-Shaped Room was to be a significant influence for singer Morrissey: in 1986, the film's rendition of the old war song Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty was appropriated by the Smiths for a soundbite opener to their The Queen is Dead album. Sixties films like these about Northern, working-class people, Morrissey declared, came as a profound signal to him that there was room for someone from his background and with his accent.

Books by the
’Angry Young Women’

Shelagh Delaney

Lynne Reid Banks

Penelope Mortimer

Nell Dunn

Margaret Drabble

Margaret Forster

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The first sequel to The L-Shaped Room. Still alone, Jane is now living with baby David in Aunt Addy's old cottage in the country while trying to resolve her relationship with Toby. Then her smart London friend Dottie arrives with an idea for a business selling handmade pottery and crafts. She insists that Jane joins her as a partner, and even finds a financial backer: quiet and gentle Henry, who may be taking more than a business interest in Jane.

‘Lynne Reid Banks is one of the most readable, delightful and accomplished novelists writing today.’ Edna O'Brien

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The final sequel to The L-Shaped Room. Jane, worried about bringing up her eight-year-old son David without a father, is contemplating marriage. In the background is David's father Terry, a threatening shadow hanging over them. But Jane is uncertain that she has ever got over first love Toby, and when she learns that Toby is divorced and living on a kibbutz in Israel, she determines to follow him and lay the ghosts for good – if she can.

‘Lynne Reid Banks joins the growing group of responsible writers who are ambitious enough to present life as they really see it - and as we, in fact, know that it really is.’ Penelope Mortimer

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