It May Never Happen

V.s. Pritchett's Englishness – The Dependable Englishness Of Shabby, Bumptious Businessmen, Shy Wives, Puritanical Suburbanites And Vinegar-tongued Grandmothers – Often Came Out In Surprising Ways. Though Comfortably Set In The Dirty Brick Factories South Of The River Or The Dreary Commuter Villages On The Outskirts Of London, A Story Will Show A Russian Sense Of Passing Time Or A French Pertness, Glow Poetically Like A Bruno Schulz, Or Wound With The Terrible Detail Of A Danilo Kis. The Innate Knowledge Of The Insider Is Registered With The Outsider's Shocked Vividness. The Fourteen Stories Of It May Never Happen Show Pritchett's Distinctive Mastery. A Fearful Sailor Falls Into Temptation Ashore. An Evangelist Of The Church Of The Last Purification Arrives In A Provincial Town To Demonstrate The Non-existence Of Evil. A Party Of Cyclists Mistakes A Private House For A Pub. Two Business Partners Fall Out Over Money And A Typist Called Miss Croft With A 'small Waist' And 'big Red Fingers'. And Aunt Gertrude Breaks A Mirror And Remembers Her Girlhood.