Number Ten - Softcover

Townsend, Sue

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140279415 ISBN 13: 9780140279412

Publisher: Penguin UK, 2003

Synopsis

Number Ten is the brilliantly funny novel by Sue Townsend, author of the Adrian Mole series. Behind the doors of the most famous address in the country, all is not well. Edward Clare was voted into Number Ten after a landslide election victory. But a few years later and it is all going wrong. The love of the people is gone. The nation is turning against him. Panicking, Prime Minister Clare enlists the help of Jack Sprat, the policeman on the door of No 10, and sets out to discover what the country really thinks of him. In disguise, they venture into the great unknown: the mean streets of Great Britain. And for the first time in years, the Prime Minister experiences everything life in this country has to offer - an English cream tea, the kindness of strangers, waiting for trains that never come and treatment in a hospital - and at last he remembers some of things he once really cared about . . . Bestselling author Sue Townsend has been Britain's favourite comic writer for over three decades. 'Wickedly entertaining. There is a gem on nearly every page. Nothing escapes Townsend's withering pen. Satirical, witty, observant ... a clever book' Observer 'Poignant, hilarious, heart-rending, devastating' New Statesman 'Hilarious. Sue Townsend's laughter is infectious' John Mortimer, Sunday Telegraph Books of the Year Sue Townsend is Britain's favourite comic author. Her hugely successful novels include eight Adrian Mole books, The Public Confessions of a Middle-Aged Woman (Aged 55¾), Number Ten, Ghost Children, The Queen and I, Queen Camilla and The Woman Who Went to Bed For a Year, all of which are highly acclaimed bestsellers. She has also written numerous well-received plays. She lives in Leicester, where she was born and grew up.

About this title

About the Author

Sue Townsend is one of Britain's favourite comic authors. Her hugely successful novels include eight Adrian Mole books, The Public Confessions of a Middle-Aged Woman (Aged 55¾), Number Ten, Ghost Children, The Queen and I, Queen Camilla and The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year, all of which are highly-acclaimed bestsellers. Sue passed away in 2014 and is survived by her husband, four children, ten grandchildren and millions of avid readers.

From Publishers Weekly

In Townsend's latest British farce (after 1993's The Queen and I, which put the British royal family in public housing, to hilarious effect), the prime minister, known by much of his public as "that pratt Edward Clare," sets out to get in touch with the masses. Speaking at a press conference, Edward is caught unprepared by questions on the price of milk and the last time he took public transportation; the little fib he tells makes him a laughingstock. Edward decides a trip across the country will reacquaint him with "the concerns of the majority of British people," and under the watchful eye of Jack Sprat, an intellectual but street-savvy police officer, Edward begins his journey-as Edwina. (It's reasoned that his wife's clothes, and later his own enthusiastically chosen ensembles, will allow Edward to remain incognito.) Edward and Jack visit the grave of Edward's mother, and they endure the pain and humiliation of public transportation before hiring a Pakistani cabdriver, who takes them to visit a poverty-stricken single mother in Leeds. Here, Edward suffers something like a heart attack, which lands him in the hospital-as ill-run as public transportation-and then the psychiatric ward, where he is described as "pathologically unable to commit to an opinion for fear of displeasing the questioner." In the meantime, Edward's loopy wife, Adele, quits taking her medication and gets a nose job, and Jack's mother opens her humble home to a bevy of crack addicts. The three story lines are masterfully and hilariously interwoven, and the book's delightfully absurd characters (especially Edward, and Jack's mother, Norma) are unforgettable. This madcap romp through England is sure to delight Anglophiles and the many fans of Townsend's beloved Adrian Mole books.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin UK
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0140279415
• ISBN 13: 9780140279412
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336