Author Note - The Golden Hours

Dear Reader,

Like many of you, I was enchanted by the Cazalets from my first reading of the first page. Unlike many, I was able to tell the author so directly. Elizabeth Jane Howard was to me and my siblings Aunt Jane. Though the connection was not by blood – she was married to our father’s brother during the Second World War – it was strong. During my childhood she was a funny, glamorous, friendly and intense visitor: the kind of grown-up who didn’t feel the need to pretend either that I was an adult or that she was a child in order to converse. The kind you were glad was coming over. Later, she became a proper friend, and a keen supporter of me as a young writer. I loved her and I miss her. And I learned so much more about Jane, and about the past of people like her, her family, my parents, from reading her books – not just the Cazalets but all her novels, and her memoir, and the excellent biography by Artemis Cooper.

The idea of continuing the Cazalet Chronicles seemed such rank impertinence when I first had it that I thought I must be joking. How could I even think it! But the possibility crept up on me that perhaps it could become a reality, and after a bit it started to seem brilliant. All Change, Jane’s final volume, ends at Christmas 1958: I was born in spring 1959. It’s a sign! I knew several of the origin stories and origin people that Jane had used as a base for her fiction – my father, my uncle, my grandparents. I know that world in reality as well as from fiction. I have clear and present memory of the era her characters would be moving into. And those characters have so much life still to live that I couldn’t imagine they weren’t somehow still existing, somewhere offstage. The sixties were going on: politics, miniskirts, sex and drugs and rock ’n’ roll, the working classes, foreigners. How were they all taking to that? Tangled in with societal changes were important matters of unfinished business that needed sorting out for individuals. What might happen with Louise and Sebastian? Juliet and Neville certainly had issues to address. Could Clary really live with so many relatives and write, in the beautiful house on the river? But how could Rupert and Archie be content – or capable – as teachers running a school, when they were both really artists? For how long could Polly house all her hapless relatives before Gerald started minding? Indeed, for how long can two dozen Turners finance a decrepit stately home? And does Villy really get no more from life, even after her teeth, and being willing to learn Russian? Could I not perhaps bring Hugo back to life? (No.) What’s Teddy actually doing in West Africa? And Rachel . . . oh Rachel. And the children! I wanted them to grow, and become themselves . . . The story is just not over.

Generations do pass; people (not just characters but authors too) do pick up the mantles of their forebears. This project is not intended to be an imitation, let alone a pastiche. It’s certainly not an exercise in branding or launching a franchise. It’s a shifting, flowing, changing continuation of life. It’s a family saga.

So I soul-searched, and pondered, and talked to Jane in my head, and felt myself to be a presumptuous nepo-baby, and reminded myself that even so it’s still quite a good idea, and finally made my impertinent claim to a baton that nobody was actually passing on to me, but that I hoped I might do justice to. And the powers-that-be allowed me, for which I am unutterably grateful.

People have asked – both supportively and sceptically – what I think Jane would have made of this project. I’ve said, well, how could one possibly know, circumstances hardly allow, and so forth. But Jane did talk back to me. Only once, and only one word. She said, in her unmistakable smoky voice: ‘Properly.’ So I have done my best to do that.

Chronicles, by their nature, are huge and detailed. I extend my deep thanks to everybody who has picked up errors and discrepancies that had snuck in. Any remaining are of course my responsibility. I know Jane’s readers love the Cazalets and are both knowledgeable and passionate: please don’t all shout at once, but do let us know.

The Golden Hours is volume 1 and 6, like King James of Scotland. There will be two more. It is a joy for me to hang out with these old friends again, and I hope it is for you too.

Louisa Young, London 2026