{"id":171825,"date":"2025-10-01T10:00:24","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T14:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=171825"},"modified":"2025-09-30T16:51:00","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T20:51:00","slug":"is-there-more-to-life-than-this-on-dinah-brookes-love-life-of-a-cheltenham-lady","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/10\/01\/is-there-more-to-life-than-this-on-dinah-brookes-love-life-of-a-cheltenham-lady\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cIs There More to Life Than This?\u201d: On Dinah Brooke\u2019s Love Life of a Cheltenham Lady<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Villa in Versilia. Photograph by Graeme Maclean, via Wikimedia Commons<\/a>. Licensed under CC BY 2.0<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n

Italy is not always the salvation of English-speaking people\u2014but it does often seem that way. In film, in literature, in food, it\u2019s the place where you go to find yourself. The real you, the one whose blazing depths have been obscured by the cold crust of convention. In The Enchanted April<\/em>\u2014the 1922 bestseller that turned Positano into a tourist destination\u2014Elizabeth von Arnim suggested that the Mediterranean climate could burn off the impurities of the English soul, as if by a kind of Italian alchemy. English travelers from Byron to E. M. Forster advanced a similar sort of travel magic as a means for getting in touch with one\u2019s soul. Keats, wracked with tuberculosis, went to Italy hoping to save his life.<\/p>\n

While the sunny views may have limited curative powers, Italy, for the traveler not coughing blood onto their bedsheets, still seems to promise a kinder, more elemental world. Especially in contrast to the modern gray drizzle of England: in Rachel Cusk\u2019s memoir of her family\u2019s months in Italy, the decision to bolt from their Bristol suburb is prompted by an ad on the street with the tagline \u201cIs there more to life than this?\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, is there?<\/p>\n

The life of Dinah Brooke suggests that she took seriously the idea that it is possible to change oneself by geographical means\u2014she escaped to Paris when she was sixteen, moved to Greenwich Village in her twenties, and, for six years, lived in Pune, India, where she was a follower of Osho, or Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. For decades now, she has been Pankaja Brooke, her sannyas<\/em> name. A resounding feat of self-transformation\u2014or annihilation, or reconstitution.<\/p>\n

Love Life of a Cheltenham Lady<\/em> describes a more equivocal transformation. In one version of Italy, you find yourself. In another, to your horror, you find no self. Deprived of the context of home, thrust into the exaggerated pressures of vacation, you start to dissolve. In this novel of intense and often violent description, the more you pursue transformation, grasp at a different self, the more the possibility disappears from reach.<\/p>\n

Miranda, the young English lady of the title, and her American actor husband, Louis, have brought their newborn to a house in the Tuscan countryside. The trip is an escape from dreary England, and a hoped-for salve for Miranda\u2019s existential disquiet. To the couple\u2019s great delight, they pull up to their rented villa and discover it\u2019s perched on a beautiful hillside with \u201cheart-stopping\u201d views. What luck\u2014the trip is off to a wonderful start. Then they open the front door. The rooms inside are impossibly dark, the air is freezing, and there are no windows at all on the side of the house with the view: the villa\u2019s only windows look onto a field of \u201charsh stubbly grass.\u201d<\/p>\n

The house is the first disappointment. Things don\u2019t get much better from there. From the beginning, we are given signs that Miranda\u2019s psychic turmoil might be beyond the reach of a nice Tuscan vacation, or a room (or villa) with a view. And beyond the reach of a husband.<\/p>\n

Louis recognizes the malleability of his wife, though he doesn\u2019t realize what it means for him: \u201cWhenever she turned her face towards him Louis had the sensation of watching an actor manipulating a white mask on a long and slender stick.\u201d Who is this woman beside him? We quickly get the sense that she wouldn\u2019t be able to answer this question either.<\/p>\n

So what does Miranda make of Italy? Like the rest of us, she encounters the place and she sees herself encountering the place. There are the usual disappointments of vacation, when the imagined self and imagined place butt up against the actual. Like life, I guess, but in miniature. It\u2019s hot. The rented house with its nonview is also, it seems, actively rejecting their presence. When Miranda and Louis attempt to picturesquely dine outside, “wasps homed in on every mouthful.” Miranda thinks, \u201cI shall be able to read, and walk to the horizon across these ancient moon hills, and lose myself in the contemplation of Etruscan sarcophagi in the museum.\u201d But an instant later, she\u2019s in a butcher shop, where \u201csuddenly the pale carcase of an animal loomed up intimately, hanging by the heels, flayed to the white fat, blood sticky on the sawdust floor\u2014its identity as pig, sheep or calf almost lost, and organs exposed namelessly. Miranda took a breath, choked on the soapy fetid smell, and fled into the street again.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not rare, even in those soft-focus, Merchant Ivory memoirs\u2014Under the Tuscan Sun or Eat, Pray, Love<\/em>\u2014to come across difficulties on the journey to a strange land, encounters that reveal the ignorance of the hero. But typically these turn out to be lessons, opportunities for wisdom to be won. Or opportunities for the distinction between self and other to be ratified: as in Cusk\u2019s memoir, in which she handily flays every bumbling tourist, boorish expat, and ill-behaved child in her path.<\/p>\n

Miranda has none of that cutting certainty about where she ends and others begin, and is unable to access any superiority or three-act wisdom offered by the genre of a foreigner abroad. Miranda is a foreigner everywhere. Days and nights, to Miranda, seem to last for years. All is incoherent, the self fractured. Very little is offered in the way of wisdom.<\/p>\n

Except, perhaps, never to become romantically involved with actors. Timeless advice. Miranda not only marries an actor, but takes another as her lover: when Louis is unexpectedly called back to London for a part, he is replaced by the Italian Oreste, an aspiring extra in tight white jeans, a man who can \u201cquote commentaries to his own moods from Shakespeare and Dante\u201d but doesn\u2019t quite know how to drive a car.<\/p>\n

Both her lover and her husband repulse and attract Miranda in rapid succession. Like the optical illusion of the crone and the young woman\u2014gruesome, desirable\u2014Miranda toggles between her perceptions with disorienting frequency. Evenas Miranda experiences these men as false and lacking, she convinces herself to carry on: \u201cShe had always found it easy to live more vividly in fiction than in the confusions of reality, and allowed herself, in pure fantasy, to fall in love with him as he existed in pure fantasy, on the stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

The performance, hers or others, allows a brief respite from those \u201cconfusions of reality.\u201d Vacation offers many opportunities to perform, and be performed for, Brooke describing the Italian waiters enacting their intricate \u201cballet\u201d for the tourists, Louis comparing their villa to the set for a low-budget historical movie. Even Miranda\u2019s baby, who \u201callowed herself to be turned into an Italian baby,\u201d is roped into the production: in one of the novel\u2019s bizarre, surreal interludes, the infant is passed off as Miranda\u2019s lover\u2019s child for the benefit of his estranged parents, while Miranda pretends to be his wife. The ruse is ridiculous, even nightmarish. But for a moment, these fictions provide real comfort. To perform is a relief, a stretch of solid ground in the psychic morass.<\/p>\n

When the self is ruptured, isn\u2019t it preferable to step into the comforting confines of a role? Put on the costume, stand up straight, hit your mark. \u201cBeing a hostess allowed her to be complete again,\u201d Brooke writes of her heroine, \u201cand she totally forgot her hours of agony. In retrospect the day seemed short and pleasant.\u201d As soon as the curtain falls, reality rushes back in.<\/p>\n

Only her infant seems to connect Miranda, intermittently, to the urgent needs of the animal self. The baby is sick, the baby is hungry, the baby is (in one extraordinary scene) in physical danger these primal demands provide rare flickers of clarity for Miranda, experienced without artifice or projection. It holds out the promise of consequence, or meaning, concepts that she has so much trouble locating in herself. When she first discovers that she is pregnant, Miranda imagines the unborn child as possessing \u201ca life that could never be replaced, never repeated.\u201d<\/p>\n

But can Miranda\u2019s life be replaced or repeated? This is another of the book\u2019s sorrowful threads\u2014the narrowing of Miranda\u2019s self by motherhood and partnership, the fact of her gender. Motherhood is another performance with its limited rewards, as is the role of lover, as is the role of woman and wife. So much of this novel sees Miranda trying and failing to find some footing in the world via these external, gendered roles, but only fracturing herself further, ceasing to function coherently. Brooke narrates from a mind that, even in total anguish, helplessly invokes the fashion wisdom for the savvy Englishwoman on vacation, like a glitchy Woman\u2019s Weekly<\/em> copywriter in the midst of a breakdown:<\/p>\n

\n

For holiday evenings sitting in caf\u00e9s a light woollen shawl is a pretty alternative to the Englishwoman\u2019s ubiquitous cardigan. The young woman sat silent with tears running down her cheeks. In a mauve dress trimmed with white braid, with a headscarf to match, the young woman sat silent, tears running down her cheeks and splashing onto her hands. Have fun on holiday. Perfect for sightseeing. For sitting in caf\u00e9s in the evenings a light shawl is a pretty alternative to the Englishwoman\u2019s ubiquitous cardigan.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Miranda\u2019s psychic turmoil is jarring, contagious. And, according to Brooke, is semi-autobiographical. She wanted to title another book The Woman Who Almost Succeeded in <\/em>Killing Herself.<\/em> The distress is so alive. It\u2019s no surprise that Dinah Brooke turned to a guru for some peace. She found it, and stopped writing entirely. In an interview, Brooke says<\/a> of the Sannyasins:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cMy life there replaced in me the need to write.\u201d She once told Osho that he had stolen her creativity. \u201cHis response was to hit me, really hard. The effect was to release my attachment to writing. This is what an Enlightenment Master is for.\u201d I tell her that, to me, the story sounds tragic. \u201cNot to me. To me it felt wonderful.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It sounded tragic to me, too, when I read this interview.<\/p>\n

And yet. That despair she describes so well in this novel that my stomach tightens. The discomfort, the unease, life broken into unfulfilled wantings and failures, the deep confusion of human being trying to survive the pain of consciousness. Sure, this misery becomes raw material you can shape into a narrative, into Brooke\u2019s lucid images\u2014we tell ourselves that transformation has some value. But wouldn\u2019t you rather be happy? Free at last of ambition and costuming and artifice?<\/p>\n

\n

If only (and for the first time the possibility did not seem to be entirely out of reach) I could lose myself, bury my self-conscious self in a life like that, where everything is what it appears to be, and I too am what I appear to be. A life was something seen from the outside, solid and complete in itself.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Dinah Brooke\u2019s Miranda is a foreigner everywhere, even to herself. If enlightenment is to be at home in the world, in a place where \u201ceverything is what it appears to be,\u201d Pankaja Brooke, on the other side of a writing life, seems to have achieved it.<\/p>\n

Sounds pretty good.<\/p>\n

Well. A writer is maybe always a foreigner. (Or that\u2019s what I tell myself.) From here in Babylon, deep in my projections and attachments, still groping in the foreign fog, I\u2019m happy she wrote this book. The moments of startling observation, her granular descriptions of a blitzed internal world. Even just the many greens: Eau de Nil,<\/em> which is less green, I learn, than celadon. The translucent green of a bunch of grapes. A dark green cake of spinach, the gray-green blanket of the English countryside.<\/p>\n

If we can\u2019t have enlightenment just yet, I\u2019ll take the bracing experience of this novel and the singular visions of its author, a harrowing, howling report from the disintegrated self.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This essay appears as an introduction to Love Life of a Cheltenham Lady<\/a>\u00a0by Dinah Brooke, to be published in November by McNally Editions.<\/em><\/p>\n

Emma Cline is the author of <\/em>The Girls, the story collection <\/em>Daddy, and <\/em>The Guest. She is the recipient of <\/em>The Paris Review‘s 2014 George Plimpton Prize for Fiction, a 2021 O. Henry Prize, and a 2024 Guggenheim Fellowship.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cSure, misery becomes raw material you can shape into a narrative\u2014we tell ourselves that transformation has some value. But wouldn\u2019t you rather be happy?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":664,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[68386],"tags":[67827,68716],"class_list":["post-171825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-reviews-review","tag-featured","tag-the-reviews-review"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n\u201cIs There More to Life Than This?\u201d: On Dinah Brooke\u2019s Love Life of a Cheltenham Lady by Emma Cline<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"October 1, 2025 \u2013 \u201cSure, misery becomes raw material you can shape into a narrative\u2014we tell ourselves that transformation has some value. But wouldn\u2019t you rather be happy?\u201d\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/10\/01\/is-there-more-to-life-than-this-on-dinah-brookes-love-life-of-a-cheltenham-lady\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"\u201cIs There More to Life Than This?\u201d: On Dinah Brooke\u2019s Love Life of a Cheltenham Lady by Emma Cline\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"October 1, 2025 \u2013 \u201cSure, misery becomes raw material you can shape into a narrative\u2014we tell ourselves that transformation has some value. But wouldn\u2019t you rather be happy?\u201d\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/10\/01\/is-there-more-to-life-than-this-on-dinah-brookes-love-life-of-a-cheltenham-lady\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-10-01T14:00:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/versilia-villa-17-35909214874.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1599\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1066\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Emma Cline\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Emma Cline\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"9 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/10\/01\/is-there-more-to-life-than-this-on-dinah-brookes-love-life-of-a-cheltenham-lady\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/10\/01\/is-there-more-to-life-than-this-on-dinah-brookes-love-life-of-a-cheltenham-lady\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Emma Cline\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/67caebe525ebf0c44594ac082b1fdc57\"},\"headline\":\"\u201cIs There More to Life Than This?\u201d: On Dinah Brooke\u2019s Love Life of a Cheltenham Lady\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-10-01T14:00:24+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/10\/01\/is-there-more-to-life-than-this-on-dinah-brookes-love-life-of-a-cheltenham-lady\/\"},\"wordCount\":2114,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/10\/01\/is-there-more-to-life-than-this-on-dinah-brookes-love-life-of-a-cheltenham-lady\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/versilia-villa-17-35909214874-1024x683.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Featured\",\"the review's review\"],\"articleSection\":[\"The Review\u2019s Review\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/10\/01\/is-there-more-to-life-than-this-on-dinah-brookes-love-life-of-a-cheltenham-lady\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/10\/01\/is-there-more-to-life-than-this-on-dinah-brookes-love-life-of-a-cheltenham-lady\/\",\"name\":\"\u201cIs There More to Life Than This?\u201d: On Dinah Brooke\u2019s Love Life of a Cheltenham Lady by Emma Cline\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/10\/01\/is-there-more-to-life-than-this-on-dinah-brookes-love-life-of-a-cheltenham-lady\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/10\/01\/is-there-more-to-life-than-this-on-dinah-brookes-love-life-of-a-cheltenham-lady\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/versilia-villa-17-35909214874-1024x683.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-10-01T14:00:24+00:00\",\"description\":\"October 1, 2025 \u2013 \u201cSure, misery becomes raw material you can shape into a narrative\u2014we tell ourselves that transformation has some value. But wouldn\u2019t you rather be happy?\u201d\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/10\/01\/is-there-more-to-life-than-this-on-dinah-brookes-love-life-of-a-cheltenham-lady\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/10\/01\/is-there-more-to-life-than-this-on-dinah-brookes-love-life-of-a-cheltenham-lady\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/10\/01\/is-there-more-to-life-than-this-on-dinah-brookes-love-life-of-a-cheltenham-lady\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/versilia-villa-17-35909214874.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/versilia-villa-17-35909214874.jpg\",\"width\":1599,\"height\":1066},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/10\/01\/is-there-more-to-life-than-this-on-dinah-brookes-love-life-of-a-cheltenham-lady\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"\u201cIs There More to Life Than This?\u201d: On Dinah Brooke\u2019s Love Life of a Cheltenham Lady\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"width\":696,\"height\":696,\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/67caebe525ebf0c44594ac082b1fdc57\",\"name\":\"Emma Cline\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/970ee279345c64b8b5522f9ebd499ce45427f570797de7289980fce73b8a7831?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/970ee279345c64b8b5522f9ebd499ce45427f570797de7289980fce73b8a7831?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Emma Cline\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/ecline\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"\u201cIs There More to Life Than This?\u201d: On Dinah Brooke\u2019s Love Life of a Cheltenham Lady by Emma Cline","description":"October 1, 2025 \u2013 \u201cSure, misery becomes raw material you can shape into a narrative\u2014we tell ourselves that transformation has some value. But wouldn\u2019t you rather be happy?\u201d","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/10\/01\/is-there-more-to-life-than-this-on-dinah-brookes-love-life-of-a-cheltenham-lady\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"\u201cIs There More to Life Than This?\u201d: On Dinah Brooke\u2019s Love Life of a Cheltenham Lady by Emma Cline","og_description":"October 1, 2025 \u2013 \u201cSure, misery becomes raw material you can shape into a narrative\u2014we tell ourselves that transformation has some value. But wouldn\u2019t you rather be happy?\u201d","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/10\/01\/is-there-more-to-life-than-this-on-dinah-brookes-love-life-of-a-cheltenham-lady\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2025-10-01T14:00:24+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1599,"height":1066,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/versilia-villa-17-35909214874.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Emma Cline","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Emma Cline","Est. reading time":"9 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/10\/01\/is-there-more-to-life-than-this-on-dinah-brookes-love-life-of-a-cheltenham-lady\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/10\/01\/is-there-more-to-life-than-this-on-dinah-brookes-love-life-of-a-cheltenham-lady\/"},"author":{"name":"Emma Cline","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/67caebe525ebf0c44594ac082b1fdc57"},"headline":"\u201cIs There More to Life Than This?\u201d: On Dinah Brooke\u2019s Love Life of a Cheltenham Lady","datePublished":"2025-10-01T14:00:24+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/10\/01\/is-there-more-to-life-than-this-on-dinah-brookes-love-life-of-a-cheltenham-lady\/"},"wordCount":2114,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/10\/01\/is-there-more-to-life-than-this-on-dinah-brookes-love-life-of-a-cheltenham-lady\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/versilia-villa-17-35909214874-1024x683.jpg","keywords":["Featured","the review's review"],"articleSection":["The Review\u2019s Review"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/10\/01\/is-there-more-to-life-than-this-on-dinah-brookes-love-life-of-a-cheltenham-lady\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/10\/01\/is-there-more-to-life-than-this-on-dinah-brookes-love-life-of-a-cheltenham-lady\/","name":"\u201cIs There More to Life Than This?\u201d: On Dinah Brooke\u2019s Love Life of a Cheltenham Lady by Emma Cline","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/10\/01\/is-there-more-to-life-than-this-on-dinah-brookes-love-life-of-a-cheltenham-lady\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/10\/01\/is-there-more-to-life-than-this-on-dinah-brookes-love-life-of-a-cheltenham-lady\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/versilia-villa-17-35909214874-1024x683.jpg","datePublished":"2025-10-01T14:00:24+00:00","description":"October 1, 2025 \u2013 \u201cSure, misery becomes raw material you can shape into a narrative\u2014we tell ourselves that transformation has some value. But wouldn\u2019t you rather be happy?\u201d","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/10\/01\/is-there-more-to-life-than-this-on-dinah-brookes-love-life-of-a-cheltenham-lady\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/10\/01\/is-there-more-to-life-than-this-on-dinah-brookes-love-life-of-a-cheltenham-lady\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/10\/01\/is-there-more-to-life-than-this-on-dinah-brookes-love-life-of-a-cheltenham-lady\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/versilia-villa-17-35909214874.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/versilia-villa-17-35909214874.jpg","width":1599,"height":1066},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/10\/01\/is-there-more-to-life-than-this-on-dinah-brookes-love-life-of-a-cheltenham-lady\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"\u201cIs There More to Life Than This?\u201d: On Dinah Brooke\u2019s Love Life of a Cheltenham Lady"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","name":"The Paris Review","description":"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization","name":"The Paris Review","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"The Paris Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/67caebe525ebf0c44594ac082b1fdc57","name":"Emma Cline","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/970ee279345c64b8b5522f9ebd499ce45427f570797de7289980fce73b8a7831?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/970ee279345c64b8b5522f9ebd499ce45427f570797de7289980fce73b8a7831?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Emma Cline"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/ecline\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/664"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171825"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171825\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":171843,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171825\/revisions\/171843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}