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Published Apr 2008
336 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
From the master of literary domestic drama, a page-turning novel that dissects the complexities of female friendship and the choices that define women’s lives.
It is Eleanor who starts the Friday night get-togethers. From her window she sees two young women, with small children, separate, struggling, and plainly lonely—and decides to ask them in.
What began as a lark soon becomes a ritual, and the circle widens to include six very different women. They range in age from Jules, who is twenty-two and wants to be a DJ, to Eleanor herself, a retired professional who walks with a stick. They include one wife, three mothers, three singles, and five working women. All of them, variously, value Friday nights.
Until one of them meets a man—an enigmatic, significant man—and the whole dynamic changes. The bonds that have been so closely forged are tested—and some of them break.
With wit and warmth, Joanna Trollope explores the complexities, the sabotages, and the shifting currents of modern female friendship.
"[A] careful and compelling examination of one man's insidious effect on a group of female friends, as memorable as it is readable." - Publishers Weekly.
"Trollope's novel rings true, portraying the complexities of contemporary women's lives without sentimentality or melodrama." - Library Journal.
"Insightful and reassuring if a little contrived." - Kirkus Reviews.
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Joanna Trollope was born in her grandfather's rectory in the Cotswolds in December 1943, and although her actual childhood was spent in the Midlands and in Surrey, she always felt that her real "home" was her birthplace. Joanna says — “It gave me - still gives me - not just a sense of rootedness, but a capacity to value landscape and weather and the rich life of smallish communities. It wouldn't matter where I lived now, I'd always carry that centred feeling of having come from somewhere very well defined with me.” Joanna is the eldest of three, the mother of two daughters and the stepmother of two stepsons — and — now a grandmother. She once saw a car sticker in the States. It read: “If I’d known how wonderful grandchildren were going to be, I’d ...
... Full Biography
Link to Joanna Trollope's Website
Name Pronunciation
Joanna Trollope: trol-lop (rhymes with wollop)
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