Getting a Life: Stories - Hardcover

Simpson, Helen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0375411097 ISBN 13: 9780375411090

Publisher: Knopf, 2001

Synopsis

From the writer whose work has been described as sparingly tragic and unsparingly funny (Ruth Rendell) and shimmering with grace and savagery and wit (The Times, London), a new collection: nine stories about the blisses and irritations of domestic life.

The setting is contemporary London and its suburbs. A seventeen-year-old girl, a student of Coleridge and Keats, walks toward her future resolved not to be anything like her successful career-woman mother. At a small caf? in South Kensington, two women, teachers, become tipsy and exchange confidences about their family difficulties and marital turmoils, revealing more than they intend. A celebratory dinner for a timber merchant and his wife in South London turns into something else entirely. In the midst of a sensuous shopping spree, a woman shares with her friend the secret of a state of mind known as wurstigkeit ('sausageness'). At a Robert Burns gala in a Mayfair hotel, poetry and money collide head-on.

These are stories that charm and move us as they catch the special timbre part laughter, part wail of youngish, more or less sophisticated lives in the city at our particular moment in time.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

ark, and thoroughly entertaining, Getting a Life proves Helen Simpson to be one of the finest observers of women on the edge. Set in and around contemporary London, these nine stories explore both the blisses and irritations of domestic life.
An ambitious teenager vows never to settle for any of the adult lives she sees around her. Two old friends get tipsy at a small cafe and end up revealing more than they intended. In a boutique so exclusive that entrance requires a password, a frazzled careerwoman explores the anesthetizing effect of highly impractical clothing. And in the mesmerizing title story, a mother of three takes life one day at a time, while pushing the ominous question of whether she wants to firmly to one side.

From the Back Cover:

“Brilliantly biting . . . Mordant comedy and lush, exact language.” –Laurie Stone, Los Angeles Times Book Review

“Wonderfully funny and disturbing . . . Waugh-like acerbity and wit.” –Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

“A welcome corrective to the recent chick-lit bubble. For those who like their fiction short, sharp and served with a side of black comedy.” –Sarah Coleman, San Francisco Chronicle

“Breathtaking and beautiful . . . admirable and haunting.” –Lorrie Moore, author of Birds of America

“Both acidic and tender . . . deliver[s] some pretty serious shocks of recognition.” –Jeff Giles, Newsweek

About this edition

• Publisher: Knopf
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0375411097
• ISBN 13: 9780375411090
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208