The Go-Between by LP Hartley: The Novel Cure for being a hopeless romantic

Literary prescriptions for modern ailments

Ailment: Being a hopeless romantic

Cure: The Go-Between by LP Hartley

Do you leave love notes in your partner's lunch-bag? Do you scatter rose petals on your bed in case a suitor drops by? Would you travel thousands of miles to pick the first alpine strawberry of the season so you could serve it to your soulmate for breakfast? If you've answered yes to any of these questions, we celebrate the felicity of your heart while fearing for its future. To inoculate against heartbreak ahead, read The Go-Between. LP Hartley's classic loss-of-innocence tale will pre-shatter your ticker just enough to prevent full-scale wreckage later on.

When, from the vantage point of old age, Leo Colston recalls the boiling-hot summer of his 12th year, we know that his sense of having lived a wasted life stems from this fateful time.

It is 1900, and he has gone to spend the holidays at the impressive Brandham Hall, home to his schoolfriend Marcus. Here, he becomes acutely aware of the class differences that separate him from Marcus, and the servants from their masters, his tight, itchy suit a symbol of his emotional discomfort.

Alienated from his friend, Leo gravitates towards the adults and spends his days orbiting these god-like figures, Venus and Mars to his Mercury. But when he is unwittingly drawn into an affair between Marcus's beautiful older sister and the groundsman, Ted, delivering letters between them, he has little idea what he's getting himself into.

As the mercury rises in the thermometers, his relationship to the clandestine lovers mimics the lure of the deadly nightshade in the woodshed, repelling and attracting in equal measure...

Sacrificing yourself on the altar of love is all very well, but the wounds incurred can last a lifetime. Let your own romanticism be gently checked by Leo's, and proceed with caution where he did not.

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