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Helen Cross

Spilt Milk, Black Coffee Paperback – 3 May 2010

by Helen Cross (Author)

7 ratings

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Handsome Amir, somewhere in his twenties, somewhere in a Yorkshire town, is torn between duty and lust. While his tradition-bound family urges him to choose a wife from a parade of blank and bashful beauties, he remains a slave to boozy blonde goddess Jackie, his fellow-worker at the department store in town. Pushing forty, with bubblegum hair and a filthy laugh, Jackie is an unlikely muse. She is openly entertained by Amir's teetotalism and moral sincerity, but behind her whip-smart wit is a forgiving and optimistic heart. And, he sighs, she has a smile that lingers in the air like smoke. Meanwhile, at home, Amir must dodge his family's plans for him to join the family newsagency business, 'Fags n Fings', and tenderly care for his beloved, but increasingly demented, mother. Sensitive, sassy, exasperated, twelve-year-old Elle lurks in a black hoody and crops her hair to look as unlike her flamboyant mother as possible. She avoids the spiteful girls at her Catholic school, and leads a double life: raucous ballads of the seventies with wine-soaked Jackie; organic raisins and stately homes with perfect Claire, her father's faultless new wife. In a northern town rife with racial tension and tabloid outrage, "Spilt Milk, Black Coffee" is an hilarious, beguiling and unlikely love story. A romantic comedy of twenty-first century multi-cultural Britain, this is an irresistible novel from the prizewinning author of My Summer of Love.

Print length

288 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Publication date

3 May 2010
Dimensions

12.9 x 1.8 x 19.8 cm
ISBN-10

1408801078
ISBN-13

978-1408801079
UNSPSC-Code
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Product description

Review

Praise for The Secret She Keeps: 'There's a timeless feel to this tale of loneliness, greed and beauty. Cross writes beautifully' Daily Mail 'Cross has an ability to imbue the everyday world with sensuality and strangeness ... it has the raw energy and flashes of brilliance that show Helen Cross to be a writer to watch' Sunday Telegraph Praise for My Summer of Love: 'Evocative, ferocious, even visceral ... A hand-grenade of a novel ... a book of quite exceptional power' Daily Mail 'A sharp, disturbing and highly original debut novel' Sunday Mirror

About the Author

Helen Cross was born in 1967 and brought up in East Yorkshire. She is the author of two previous novels: The Secrets She Keeps and My Summer of Love, which won a Betty Trask Prize and was made into an award-winning film. She lives in Birmingham.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (3 May 2010)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1408801078
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1408801079
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 12.9 x 1.8 x 19.8 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 2,576,723 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 169,914 in Contemporary Fiction (Books)
- 172,957 in Literary Fiction (Books)

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7 ratings

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S. Hunt

A proper good Yorkshire read with Yorkshire characters.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 10 July 2017

Verified Purchase

This was the book that got me back into reading after a little time when I was way too stressed and lacked the concentration to read. I still remember it with clarity years later. Read it! You won't be disappointed. I was swept away with the story.

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Spilt Milk Black Coffee

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 5 August 2013

I really enjoyed Spilt Milk, Black Coffee, though it might not be everyone's cup of tea. It's a simple enough book which plays havoc with tenses as it gets to grip with its two principal narrative voices and the chronology of the story, and it's both funny and moving.

Helen Cross has based the plot around the tabloid news story of a woman who went on holiday to Greece (or Spain), leaving her 11 year old daughter home alone. In the press she was treated as a caricature, a typical modern case of selfish abandonment. Helen Cross fleshes out the details of Jackie's character by showing her from the point of view of her abandoned daughter, and through the eyes of a Pakistani colleague. These two characters are interesting: Elle, the daughter, is torn between her father, with his new, very normal wife, and her chaotic mother; Amir is in love with Jackie, and in conflict with his family, and the responsibilities he feels towards them and their traditions.

The story begins as Jackie is about to get married for a third time, and the alternating points of view unravel the story and show us more of Jackie, and especially more of both Amir and Elle. The Daily Mail says, "empathic, memorable, defiantly beautiful." It was all these things.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 14 June 2013

I was staggered by the quality of this book. I loved the contrast between the grittiness of the story, and the morality which shone through. It was brilliantly written, the characters were engaging, and the themes and plot were captivating. I will now be reading through the back catalogue of this writer's work. Top job!

Louise Gillett
Author of 'Surviving Schizophrenia: A Memoir'.

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Mary. Cutler

Now this is what I call a Rom Com

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 June 2009

I want to congratulate Helen Cross on being one of the few non Muslim authors to write about British Asians as if they were people- have, as George Eliot puts it an equivalent centre of self, of which their religion is a part, but a natural part to them, as Dorothea's Christianity is to her-you can see how much I liked it if it makes me think of Middlemarch! And she gives that same sense of self to another vilified tabloid creation-the single mother. Walk a mile in my moccasins the Native Americans say, and with Helen's help we walk in Amir's smart slip ons, Jackie's spike heels and Elle's trainers, and see the complex world beyond those tabloid headlines-funny, tender, touching- and brilliantly observed.

5 people found this helpful

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Halstead Catherineruth

Spilt Milk, Black Coffee - poetic, sensitive and a great story

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 August 2009

Definitely Helen's best work so far. In Spilt Milk, Black coffee Helen has perfected her particular poetic style and created an entralling narrative set in a multi-racial British community. By presenting the story through the perspectives of different characters - a child torn between divorced parents, Asian Amir and a white, working-class single mother hungry for love and shiny shoes, we get a comprehensive, unbiased picture of modern Britain. Wise,sensitive and sometimes humorous. And a great story - the Christmas flight to Bridlington at the end was riveting.

2 people found this helpful

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Stuart C.

Rom Com in Bradford (?)

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 21 March 2014

I generally don't like rom com books - often advertised as "wickedly funny" but tending to be cliched and predictable. But Helen Cross has been very brave in attempting a male British Muslim POV which seems authentic but not being of Bangladeshi origin myself I find it hard to judge. However, I did find that Amir's vernacular vocabulary tended to repeat itself quite a lot. The Elle (12 year old girl) POV seemed a bit disjointed - the relationship with her mother seemed all over the place but this is probably right for that age.
The novel is one massive flashback from the steps of the registry office and it is sometimes hard to follow the time jumps. However I liked the sense of place and the descriptions of the family reunions and life in urban multicultural Britain. The plot isn't complex - basically a will he/she won't he/she dilemma but it has reasonable pace.

One person found this helpful

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Rosie Ross

Worth watching out for

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 May 2009

I enjoyed this book as it was so very different from my usual choice (though I had been looking out for it since Cross's last one, The Secrets She Keeps) : I think this book takes an admirable risk and tells it like it probably is. When I curled up with the book, I didn't seem like I'd stayed put, on my own settee! It drew me in with its story, made me laugh sometimes and had my heart racing with a fast-paced concluding section.

Helen Cross's ear for language made reading the book seem almost like listening to a gripping radio play. She is a writer I am pleased I watched out for.

Rosie Ross

3 people found this helpful

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Spilt Milk, Black Coffee Paperback – 3 May 2010

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Helen Cross

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