In C.L.R. James' MINTY ALLEY, Miss Atwell explains to Haynes: "I used to be a great reader of novels in my day. That is a long time now. And novels isn't serious books".

One reason I believe novels are serious books is because they can teach you how to interact with the opposite sex. This is made evident in MINTY ALLEY when Haynes tries to figure out how to work up the courage to let Maisie know that he is interested in her. An example of this is in the passage, "Haynes was feeling exhilarated by the unexpected fluency he had found in his tongue. And that had given him a new confidence. And now he felt he could do what he liked with Maisie when he pleased".

Novels can also teach you how not to treat someone you are with in a relationship. This is made evident when Mrs. Rouse says, "Mr. Haynes, I have been more than a wife to him. I have been a mother. I nurse him in sickness. I shield him from harm. And he gone and leave me. But let him go with that woman. The day will come when he call for the one he leave behind".

Novels can teach people how to solve difficult problems such as the fact that Maisie never did any
work in the house and Mrs. Rouse couldn't put up with this anymore. This is made clear in the passage, "The great arrangement was this. Maisie would be given some specified work- keeping the books, washing, starching and ironing, and a few other tasks. She would do them for Mrs. Rouse, who in turn would pay her a fixed salary and give her food. Mrs. Rouse would not be concerned with Maisie as long as the work was properly done and in time".

Novels can also teach you that sometimes it is wise to think about a decision you are planning to make in a relationship before you make it. This is evident in the passage, "What a fool he had made of himself! Haynes felt he ought to have known that the wife living with him in two rooms would be less desirable than the woman whom he could hold in his arms only in stolen interviews. The material advantage which he had hoped to gain he had lost".

By reading novels, you can learn how people orchestrate how they are going to cheat on their significant other. This is made obvious in the passage, "Mrs. Rouse was not going to prevent him
going out. It was not long before everybody in No. 2 knew that Benoit spent every hour that he was away from home at the nurse's house. As soon as he finished work he took his lunch and left. He returned to enter the accounts in the book. He ate hurriedly, sometimes did not eat at all, and was off again, not returning until midnight, or later".

Novels can also teach you what an adverse effect the realization a significant other is cheating can have. This is made perfectly clear in the passage, "The difference between her appearance today and before when she led Haynes into that very room made him realize more than imagination could what she had gone through. Then she was a stout housewife, slightly care-worn, but cheerful, hopeful of the future if even things were not as bright as she wished. Today she was a defeated woman- in her eyes a hunted look which she no longer took the trouble to disguise, sustained merely by the necessity to keep the wheels of her business going".

Novels also show how individuals can gossip about other people. This is present in the passage, "Day
after day the items of news came to No.2. How Benoit and the nurse were strolling on the seawall one evening arm-in-arm, how they had been seen drivin in the car to St. Philip's and another night to Orange Vale. How the nurse had got a two days' job and how Benoit used to accompany her to the gate of the house where she worked and how they waved hands when they parted".

The novel MINTY ALLEY teaches the reader that some people black magic. This is evident in the passage, "But Mrs. Rouse was not giving him up without effort. Three times a day the scent of incense and asafoedtida burning in her bedroom poisoned the atmosphere. She was using all the science she knew to win back Benoit. But Benoit was a man of science too".

Novels can inform you of what could happen if an individual practices thievery. This is clear in the
passage, "She had a big basket of clothes on her hand as when you carryin' a baby, and the two police one on each side and the inspector behind. And one crowd of people! But she wasn't crying nor nothing, you know. She had on the uniform and the glasses and her head straight up. And so she pass into the station".

MINTY ALLEY also teaches you that you cannot always trust the people who live with you. This is crystal clear in the passage, "No.2 began to suffer from a series of petty thefts, growing in size. A penny, four cents, a sixpence, a shilling, then back to sixpence again; but on the whole mounting steadily".

I would recommend MINTY ALLEY to anyone who enjoys drama, scandal, romance, and seduction because this book has all four!