The Men and the Girls: A Novel - Softcover

Trollope, Joanna

3.72

2,012 ratings by Goodreads

9780345520982: The Men and the Girls: A Novel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 034552098X ISBN 13: 9780345520982

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 2010

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When James accidentally swerves into an elderly woman with his car, he is mortified. But for his girlfriend, Kate, it’s a wake-up call: What is she doing with this man, twenty-five years her senior, who forgets his glasses and knocks an old lady off her bike? James’s lifelong friend Hugh is faring little better with his seemingly perfect and significantly younger wife Julia. Once one of Britain’s most famous newsmen, Hugh sees his star fading—just as Julia’s is rising through a lucrative new TV career.

Four people—the men and the girls—each struggle with discontent as two relationships teeter on the brink. Add to the mix one fiercely independent spinster named Miss Bachelor, and what transpires will alter all of their lives forever, as new relationships blossom, old insecurities surface, and homes and fortunes are turned upside down.

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About the Author:

Joanna Trollope is the author of a number of historical and contemporary novels including The Choir, A Village Affair, A Passionate Man, The Rector’s Wife, The Men and the Girls and A Spanish Lover.

From Kirkus Reviews:

Happy endings of the most defensible kind, helped along by an unlikely good fairy--Miss Beatrice Bachelor, a ``real original and very brave''--abound in Trollope's latest take on love and life in contemporary Britain (A Village Affair, 1989, etc.). Set mostly in that part of Oxford familiar to PBS fans of Inspector Morse, the story, like an updated Shakespearean comedy, begins with two couples that drift into dangerous areas come close to parting, but, thanks to the good offices of Miss Bachelor, are reunited at the end. James Mallow, in his early 60s, a journalist and teacher, lives happily with much younger Kate and her 14-year- old daughter, Joss, along with ancient and irascible Uncle Leonard. James's old friend Hugh, a TV personality married to much younger Julia, and father of young twin sons, lives nearby. An accident introduces James to Miss Bachelor, who lives in one room, along with Cat, a character in his own right. Meanwhile, Kate, feeling increasingly overwhelmed by her responsibilities--she also volunteers at a home for battered women--decides to move out, but Joss, a typical adolescent, stays on. It's the only home she knows, and she, as well as Uncle Leonard, has by now met Miss Bachelor and is also taken with her good sense and originality. Though Hugh's show on euthanasia--Uncle Leonard and Miss Bachelor, who helped her ailing brother die, contribute their forthright opinions--is a hit, Hugh's contract is not renewed. Which means that when Julia behaves absolutely marvelously to him, Hugh can't stand it and moves in with James. Kate, badly beaten by a lover, finally meets Miss Bachelor, who gives her the advice she needs. Hugh, missing the twins, heads home; subplots are deftly resolved; and all's well that ends well. One of those rare novels that can claim the high middle-ground where wisdom, wit, and literate characters meet to tell an entertaining--and all-around fulfilling--story. -- Copyright �1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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