'Family life is Mortimer's subject . . . she picks it apart with precise, swift, sharp strokes.' -- Lucy Scholes, Paris Review First published in 1960, Penelope Mortimer's only collection of short stories lays bare the fury and despair that lurk beneath the surface of everyday domestic life. A mother and her young son arrive at a rental house in rural France only to find themselves locked out; a fractious family of five try and get through a Saturday at home together; a publisher with a pe...

In this extraordinary, semi-autobiographical novel, Penelope Mortimer depicts a married woman's breakdown in 1960s London. With three husbands in her past, one in her present and a numberless army of children, Mrs Mortimer is astonished to find herself collapsing one day in Harrods. This strange, unsettling novel, shot through with black comedy, is a moving account of one woman's realisation that marriage and family life may not, after all, offer all the answers to the problems of living.

Daddy's Gone A-Hunting, a 1958 novel by Penelope Mortimer, is about the expectations of women, about a house-bound mother reluctantly (desperately) at home all day, in contrast to her daughter who has escaped, to university and then, we can assume, to a job.'The book came out at a time,' writes Valerie Grove in the Preface, 'when the impact of the new wave of feminism, which would change everything under the banner of women's liberation, had not yet arrive...

A peakthrough novel of suburban loneliness and subversion—“her style, spare and singular, cuts through the decades like a scalpel” (Rachel Cooke, The Observer)A bourgeois housewife, Ruth Whiting, is “paralysed by triviality,” measuring out her days in coffee mornings, glasses of sherry, and pidge parties—routines that barely disturb the solitude of her existence. Her husband spends his weeknights in town; their daughter, eighteen-year-old Angela, is at Oxf...

This darkly humorous novel of a woman’s inner musings on motherhood, betrayal, dreams—and the unpredictable emotions that surround them—is “so moving, so funny, so desperate, so alive . . . one to be greatly enjoyed” (The New York Times).The “strange, fresh” feminist classic that inspired the 1964 film starring Anne Bancroft (Nick Hornby, author of Funny Girl).The Pumpkin Eater is a surreal black comedy about the ...

When Mercy Garrett moves herself out of the family home, everyone determines not to notice.All she wants is space and silence. No clutter. Not even their cat, Desmond.But it turns out family life is impossible to escape - particularly when it's in your past. For Mercy it all begins in 1959, with a holiday to a cabin by a lake. It's the only one the Garretts will ever take, but its effects will ripple through the generations.The glorious ...

WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2023WINNER OF THE 2024 DAYTON LITERARY PEACE PRIZE * SHORTLISTED FOR THE AN PO****ST IRISH BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023 * SHORTLISTED FOR THE STREGA EUROPEAN PRIZE * SHORTLISTED FOR THE DUBLIN LITERARY AWARDA SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERA NEW YORK TIMES EDITOR'S CHOICEAN AMAZON TOP 10 BOOK OF DECEMBER 2023A Bo...

It is Brighton, 1959, and the theatre at the end of the pier is having its best summer season in years. Ronnie, a brilliant young magician, and Evie, his dazzling assistant, are top of the bill, drawing audiences each night. Meanwhile, Jack – Jack Robinson, as in ‘before you can say’ – is everyone’s favourite compère, a born entertainer, holding the whole show together.As the summer progresses, the off-stage drama between the three begins to overshadow their theatrical success, and...

THE GLOBAL #1 BESTSELLERAN IRISH TIMES TOP 100 IRISH BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURYA BEST BOOK OF 2024 IN THE GUARDIAN, TIMES, SUNDAY TIMES, IRISH TIMES, LONDON STANDARD, INDEPENDENT, OBSERVER, NEW STATESMAN, iNEWS, GOOD HOUSEKEEPING, THE SKINNY, CITY AM, DAILY MAIL, AND THE CONVERSATION' Intermezzo is perfect ... Is there a better novelist at work right now?'...

The Times 50 best paperbacks of 2024A Sunday Times and No. 1 New York Times bestseller'Filled with the moments I live for in a story'BONNIE GARMUS, author of Lessons in Chemistry'[Tom Lake] has it all ... Young love, sibling rivalry and deep mother-daughter relationships'REESE WITHERSPOON'One of the most beloved authors of her...

Soon to be a major film starring Olivia Coleman, Colin Firth, Odessa Young, Josh O'Connor (The Crown) and Alice Birch (Normal People)'Exquisite . . . Mothering Sunday shows love, lust and ordinary decency straining against the bars of an unjust English caste system' Kazuo IshiguroIt is March 30th 1924. It is Mothering Sunday.How will Jane Fairchild, orphan and housemaid, occupy her time when she has no moth...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2022**THE TOP 10 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERThe Pulitzer Prize-winning, Booker-longlisted, bestselling author returns to her beloved heroine Lucy Barton in a luminous novel about love, loss, and the family secrets that can erupt and bewilder us at any point in life**Lucy Barton is a successful writer living in New York, navigating the second half of her life as a recent widow and parent to two adult daughters. A ...