SOURCE: Lively, Penelope. “A Dance to the Music of London.” Spectator 291, no. 9114 (12 April 2003): 42.

In the following review, Lively offers a positive assessment of The Mistressclass, praising Roberts's “meticulous creation of a time and a place.”

Michèle Roberts writes some of the most sensual prose around in contemporary fiction. This novel is alight with rich descriptive passages, often springing from the most mundane prompts—having a shampoo at the hairdresser, rolling a joint, the interior of a greasy-spoon café. In other hands, these might seem gratuitous page-fillers. Michèle Roberts uses them to create a climate for her fiction that gives it another dimension. You do not just read the book, you also smell and see the action.

The Mistressclass is a London novel. The city itself infuses the narrative, a vivid and vibrant backcloth of wet gleaming streets, the river with its detritus, crammed tube trains, the...