Bad Mothers, Brilliant Lovers - Softcover

Perriam, Wendy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0709093861 ISBN 13: 9780709093862

Publisher: GARDNERS VI BOOKS AMS006

Synopsis

In this, her eighth short-story collection, Wendy Perriam casts a spotlight on both mothers and lovers, exploring, on the one hand, the influence of bad parenting on our future happiness, and, on the other, the power of transformative sex to transport us from mundane reality to an electrifying realm. She also chronicles the lives of those lonely, thwarted, or unduly pressured by their jobs. Many of these, however, succeed in effecting lucky escapes or making courageous bids for freedom. A feisty octogenarian flees the cramped horizons of a care home; a stressed businesswoman renounces the straitjacket of nine-to-five; a bride-to-be breaks off her engagement to a man whose obsession with numbers threatens her chance of marital harmony. As always in her work, Perriam is fascinated by the intrepid search for self-fulfilment in an uncertain world, and by those crucial moments in ordinary lives that prove to be epiphanies or turning points. Bad Mothers, Brilliant Lovers explores such transformations with compassion, humour and emotional precision, in this lively and inventive new collection from one of Britain's leading short-story writers.

About this title

About the Author

Wendy Perriam's seventeen novels and seven previous short-story collections have been acclaimed for their psychological insight and their power to disturb, divert and shock. She feels her inspiration as a writer comes from her many conflicting life experiences - strict convent-school discipline and swinging sixties wildness, marriage and divorce, infertility and motherhood, 9-to-5 conformity and periodic Bedlam - have helped shape her as a writer. 'Writing allows for shadow-selves. I'm both the staid conformist matron and the slag; the well-organised author toiling at her desk and the madwoman shrieking in a straitjacket.'

Review

Perriam's stories are irradiated with the light of her profound humanity, her sharp comic sense and sometimes her anger. Never predictable, never sentimental, she is a terrific champion of the powers of the imagination to transform individual lives. The Tablet Perriam writes beautifully, but what especially takes her out of the ordinary is her extraordinary empathy, her fellow-feeling for the weak and the anxious, which gives her stories authenticity and depth. But her humour and her appreciation of the joys that generosity, kindness, courage and good sex can bring ensure that hope has its place in a hard world. Perriam describes the short story as a "one-night stand, as against a long-term relationship, but, however brief the experience, it should still be passionately involving." This collection nobly fulfils that aspiration. -- Ruth Dudley Edwards Standpoint Magazine 'the overall feeling that Wendy Perriam leaves you with, in spite of everything, is hope. Fragile, battered, dashed, but, like lonely Ellen fooled by a confidence trickster in another story, surviving all the disappointments to see what is really golden. If it's not too late, pack this book for your beach or poolside holiday.' Piers Plowright

About this edition

• Publisher: GARDNERS VI BOOKS AMS006
• ISBN 10: 0709093861
• ISBN 13: 9780709093862
• Binding: Paperback