Marrying the Mistress - Hardcover

Trollope, Joanna

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670891509 ISBN 13: 9780670891504

Publisher: Viking Adult, 2000

Synopsis

Simon Stockdale spells it out for his son Jack: 'Your grandfather is proposing to leave your grandmother to whom he has been married for forty years and marry a woman with whom he has been having an affair for seven years.'
'Grando?' marvels Jack. 'Grando wants out and to start again?' What can this mean to a boy in the throes of his first love affair? Or to Simon's wife Carrie who always thought her wronged mother-in-law was one of the most self-pitying women she'd ever met anyway? Filial debts are about to be called in and Carrie doesn't want her husband Simon to pay them. Yet Simon feels a bond of obligation towards his mother which makes him vulnerable - and which no one else can fathom.
And what of the mistress - a barrister who has fallen in love with a judge twice her age? What if she isn't just 'His Honour's totty', as one court official labels her. What if, as Simon's gay brother Alan decides, 'She's the real thing. She's a proper person.'

About this title

Review

The court official leaned closer.
"What's gone past," he said, "is not just an advocate, any old lady advocate. What's gone past is his Honour's totty."

And what's going past is the life of Guy Stockdale, a 62-year-old judge, who has been married forever, has two sons--Simon and Alan--and three grandchildren. For the past seven years, he's also had a mistress. Merrion Palmer is intelligent, attractive, and half Guy's age, which also makes her younger than both Simon and Alan. Her dad died when she was a toddler and she's well aware that Guy is something of a father substitute. For years the role of mistress has suited her, but, suddenly, this style of relationship isn't enough for either of them. They've both had enough of sneaking around and avoiding people, so Guy has momentously made up his mind to leave his wife, Laura, and marry Merrion.

Marrying the Mistress dives into the shock waves that buffet the Stockdale family after Guy leaves Laura. The novel addresses the question of how his sons are going to cope, the explosive opinions of his forthright daughter-in-law Carrie and what his teenage grandchildren make of it all. Can any of them avoid taking sides? Should they? And what about the abandoned wife, Laura, a woman apparently so long-sufferingly self-sacrificing she makes Mother Teresa look selfish?

From queen of the saga Joanna Trollope comes a dexterous portrayal of the causes and effects of marital breakdown: the stresses, the battle of wills, the bitterness and personal growth, the renegotiation of relationships--and an exposure of the depths to which the moral high ground can sink.--Lisa Gee

About the Author

Joanna Trollope, a descendant of Anthony Trollope and a #1 bestselling author in England, is most recently the author of Other People's Children, The Best of Friends, and A Spanish Lover. Her novels The Choir and The Rector's Wife were both adapted for "Masterpiece Theatre."

About this edition

• Publisher: Viking Adult
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0670891509
• ISBN 13: 9780670891504
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 293