Watermelon: A Walsh Family Novel - Softcover

Keyes, Marian

3.77

86,371 ratings by Goodreads

9780099489986: Watermelon: A Walsh Family Novel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099489988 ISBN 13: 9780099489986

Publisher: Arrow, 2006

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A hilarious and bittersweet tale of baby-blues and fruitless men.

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 tell her that he’s leaving her. 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. 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 her (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.

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About the Author:

MARIAN KEYES has had two number 1 Sunday Times bestsellers -- Sushi for Beginners and Angels. She is the celebrated author of Watermelon, Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married, Rachel's Holiday, Last Chance Saloon, and The Other Side of the Story. She also writes short stories, monthly columns and one-offs for various magazines. She is involved with various charities -- she contributed to a multi-authored book, Yeats is Dead! where all the royalties were donated to Amnesty International. She recently published a collection of her journalism, titled Under the Duvet, and donated all royalties from Irish sales to the Simon Community, a charity which works with the homeless.

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.

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