Guardian
'Compulsively readable... attentive observation linked with humour and an artist's compassionate sensibility... Beautiful writing blends with inventive plot conceits'
Good Housekeeping, July 1, 2004
'A moving, comic and insightful book, with a touchingly human heroine at its heart'
Sainsbury's Magazine, July 1, 2004
'Her observations of modern life show deep insight and are revealed in beautifully crafted prose and with tender humour'
Daily Mail
Both funny and painful. Delighting in quiet detail...Boyt lends grace and elegance to this tale...
The Scotsman
A serious and accomplished novelist...both moving and delightfully comic...written with elegant assurance
The Independent
A fresh and wholly idiosyncratic take on life.
Observer
A sharp and funny protrait of people trying to find connections as their lives unravel around them
Penelope Lively, Sunday Times
She has a deft touch....Boyt is a dab hand at dialogue...there is much here to enjoy
Independent
'A fresh and wholly idiosyncratic take on life'
Observer
'A sharp and funny portrait of people trying to find connections as their lives unravel around them'
Product Description
Marjorie Hemming, marriage guidance counsellor, craves concord and harmony the way other people need cigarettes. She longs for all her quarrelling couples to be reconciled, and is delighted when people start to mistake her for an angelic nurse in a hospital TV drama series. But her alarmingly skinny teenage daughter has secrets she won't reveal, and some couples just refuse to kiss and make up. Even stalwart Nurse Rose is acting out of character as she launches herself into an obviously doomed marriage. Marjorie has knitted her world together with care - is it starting to fray?
About the Author
Susie Boyt, daughter of the painter, Lucian Freud, was born in London in 1969. She is the author of The Normal Man, which was read on Radio 4's Woman's Hour, The Characters of Love and (in Headline) The Last Hope of Girls. She lives in Regents Park.
