Instances of the Number 3: A Novel - Softcover

Vickers, Salley

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312421125 ISBN 13: 9780312421120

Publisher: Picador, 2003

Synopsis

Following the death of Peter Hansome, his wife Bridget is contacted by Frances Slater, her late-husband's mistress. Though the two are from opposite sides of London and meet under the least desirable circumstances, the women become close friends. In a subtly wrought turn of events, Bridget and Frances discover that they have in common what is important to them most: their parallel memories of Peter, killed in a car accident, and the shared reality of his spirit form, haunting them still. A gracefully tuned feat of the imagination, Salley Vickers's novel is a rare celebration of life's most intriguing geometries, the love triangle.

About this title

About the Author

Salley Vickers's novels, Instances of the Number 3 and Miss Garnet's Angel, have been bestsellers in England. She divides her time between London and Bath

From Publishers Weekly

The classic threesome husband, wife, mistress proves mathematically unstable in Vickers's profound comic novel (following her debut, Miss Garnet's Angel). When 62-year-old Londoner Peter Hansome dies in a car crash, his widow, Bridget, and his mistress, Frances, develop an awkward intimacy cemented by their shared loss. But before Bridget can come to terms with Peter's absence, a "breathtaking" young Iranian man named Zahin arrives to see Peter and winds up moving in as houseguest/housekeeper. Zahin is charming deferential and superhumanly industrious, he fills the air with the "satisfying scent of lavender Pledge" but there's also something unsettling about his presence, which drives Bridget to her Shropshire cottage, where she meets Stanley Godwit, a Shakespeare-loving chimney sweep. Frances, too, finds unexpected joy as she learns to make sense of life without Peter. But Peter is never actually gone, as his ghost watches over his former "consorts." This ghost is no jealous meddler; he's more ambiguous, prompting Bridget to meditate on the ambiguity of the ghost in Hamlet and on her own uneasy Catholicism. Though Vickers begins unpromisingly by adopting a pedantic tone, she abandons this posture soon enough, allowing her appealing characters to bloom as the world opens up to them in surprising but logical ways. Philosophical concerns are woven seamlessly with earthly incident, so that bad cocktail parties resonate and good bubble baths matter. In the tradition of the late Iris Murdoch, this extraordinary book will inspire and delight.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Picador
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0312421125
• ISBN 13: 9780312421120
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 305