SOURCE: “Bothered by God,” in New Statesman & Society, Vol. 8, No. 341, February 24, 1995, pp. 54–5.

In the following favorable review, Cooke compares An Experiment in Love with the work of Muriel Spark and David Lodge.

In her last novel, A Change of Climate, Hilary Mantel took on the nonconformist tradition of mission and righteousness and exposed its insufficiencies. Her family of well-intentioned “East Anglican fossils” find that their parents’ religious and ethical beliefs lacked validity when it comes to the crunch. Faced by the immensity of evil, and the loss of their baby son, they react by blaming themselves.

On a smaller scale, this new novel follows a similar theme. Carmel McCabe, the central character, is the only child of a poor northern couple who work hard at earning the appellation “dour.” Her destiny is to become a scholarship girl, winning a place, first, at the Holy Redeemer—the McCabes are...