Watermelon - Hardcover

Keyes, Marian

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 038097617X ISBN 13: 9780380976171

Publisher: William Morrow, 1998

Synopsis

At twenty-nine, fun-loving, good-natured Claire has everything she ever wanted: a husband she adores, a great apartment, a good job. Then, on the day she gives birth to her first baby, James visits her in the recovery room to inform her that he's leaving her. And he hasn't even had the decency to leave her for someone glamorous; just the frumpy woman who lives in the apartment downstairs...

Claire is left with a beautiful newborn daughter, a broken heart, and a body that she can hardly bear to look at in the mirror. Until quite recently especially when wearing a green maternity jumper that was the only thing left that fit her--she felt she bore an uncomfortable resemblance to a popular summer fruit.)

So, in the absence of any better offers, Claire decides to go home to her family in Dublin. To her gorgeous man-eating sister Helen, her soap-watching mother, her bewildered father. And there, sheltered by the love of an (albeit quirky) family, she gets better.

A lot better.

In fact, so much better that when James slithers back into her life, he's in for a bit of a surprise.

In this very funny, very fresh, very wise novel, Marian Keyes delivers an unforgettable debut--and a heroine so irresistible that she feels like a new best friend.

About this title

About the Author:

Marian Keyes is the author of ten bestselling novels and two essay collections. She lives in Ireland with her husband and their two imaginary dogs.

From Kirkus Reviews:

A grand first novel by Irish writer Keyes is a hilarious treatise on loves roller coaster. Both elated and exhausted after giving birth to a daughter, the 29-year-old Claire is shocked senseless when her husband James comes to the London hospital not to celebrate, but instead to break the news that he's leaving her for their dowdy downstairs neighbor. The stunned Claire, with new baby in tow, and feeling as big as a summer melon, hightails it back to her family in Dublin to sort out her life. Wandering around her childhood home in her mother's old nightgowns, a vodka bottle in one hand and the bawling Kate in the other, Claire tries to banish images of the frolicking James and his ``other woman.'' Her two younger sisters prove to be a comfortsweet Anna, a hippie drug-dealer, loans Claire money for booze, and haughty Helen deigns to buy it for her. And drunken anguish does have its rewards, for in no time Claire sheds her extra weight, thanks to a steady liquid diet and nights spent on the family rowing machine fantasizing Jamess ruin. But it is only when Gorgeous Adam appears on the scene that Claire begins to recover a sense of purpose. A college friend of Helen's, Adam exemplifies perfect manhood--and helpfully takes a liking to her, too. But just as things begin crackling between them, James shows up, oh-so- generously ready to forgive Claire for driving him into the arms of the other woman. Torn between the comforts of her former life in London and a new, heartening sense of self-worth and self-sufficiencynot to mention the Gorgeous AdamClaire finds herself hard put to make a decision. A candid, irresistibly funny debut and perfect summertime read. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: William Morrow
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 038097617X
• ISBN 13: 9780380976171
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 419