The Queen of the Tambourine

St Just Monday Morning Reading Group 23rd February 2026.

The Queen of the Tambourine. Jane Gardam.

This book engendered a long discussion amongst the reading group. Some found it entertaining, some said it was weird, irritating, or confusing. Most of us agreed the structure was very clever, whether or not we actually liked the book.

We acknowledged that this was a story about a menopausal woman, who had earlier suffered a miscarriage, and was now isolated in a suburban house with a more or less absent husband and no career of her own, who found herself with mental health problems and was trying to cope with these in her own way. But the main point we discussed was how much of what she related (through the letters she was writing to ‘Joan’), were real in terms of her own life, and how much was an elaborate fantasy. One interpretation might be that Joan, Joan’s family, and all the incidents arising out of Joan’s existence, were a fantasy constructed by Eliza as an answer to her own situation – a surrogate family, as she had none of her own. Eliza actually tells this version to Barry while they are stranded on the top of the Big Wheel at the summer fair. This seems convincing to some extent, but as we have been told that Eliza has just been with Barry in the hospice as he passed away, Eliza’s confessions might not be true at all. Also the end of the book someone called Joan gets in touch with Eliza… So we can’t be sure. Possibly the author is playing a game with her readers.

Obviously the book is full of absurdities; Alice in Wonderland was mentioned more than once, especially in connection with the Oxford don disappearing down the drain. We talked about the humour, or lack of it – some readers found it ‘comic’, while others thought the subject matter too serious for humour. We also noted instances of institutional racism (the book is set in the 1970s, we thought), and the position of women.

We ended by wondering how much of the book is about Eliza having lost a child, and if we were to re-read it, whether with the benefit of this knowledge we might see the whole narrative more in this light.