Number 10 - Hardcover

Townsend, Sue

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1569473498 ISBN 13: 9781569473498

Publisher: Soho Press, 2003

Synopsis

“Townsend has a rare gift … wickedly funny.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred)

“It’s not pretty, it’s not subtle, but it’s wickedly funny and skewers London’s prime-time players.”—Columbus Dispatch

Praise for Sue Townsend:

“It’s a good thing British subjects are no longer beheaded for treason, or Sue Townsend’s head would roll . . . outrageously cutting.”—Newsday

“[Townsend] is a national treasure.”—The New York Times Book Review

Edward Clare, PM of England, doesn’t know the price of a liter of milk. Worse, he’s admitted it on national television. The public that ushered him to a landslide election has turned against him.

Edward decides the only way to get closer to the men and women on the street is to travel the country dressed in drag. Leaving his high-powered, ambitious wife to attend to things in his absence, he sets out.

In this comic romp Sue Townsend sends up, roasts, hoists and generally petards the once and future prime ministers as only she can.

Sue Townsend is celebrated as the author of the bestselling

Adrian Mole series, read by millions, as well as the #1 British bestseller, The Queen and I. She lives in Leicester, England.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

About this title

About the Author

Sue Townsend is celebrated as the author of the bestselling Adrian Mole series of books, read by millions around the world, as well as the #1 bestseller, The Queen and I. She is also a print and television journalist. She lives in Leicester, England.

Reviews

In Townsend's latest British farce (after 1993's The Queen and I, which put the British royal family in public housing, to hilarious effect), the prime minister, known by much of his public as "that pratt Edward Clare," sets out to get in touch with the masses. Speaking at a press conference, Edward is caught unprepared by questions on the price of milk and the last time he took public transportation; the little fib he tells makes him a laughingstock. Edward decides a trip across the country will reacquaint him with "the concerns of the majority of British people," and under the watchful eye of Jack Sprat, an intellectual but street-savvy police officer, Edward begins his journey-as Edwina. (It's reasoned that his wife's clothes, and later his own enthusiastically chosen ensembles, will allow Edward to remain incognito.) Edward and Jack visit the grave of Edward's mother, and they endure the pain and humiliation of public transportation before hiring a Pakistani cabdriver, who takes them to visit a poverty-stricken single mother in Leeds. Here, Edward suffers something like a heart attack, which lands him in the hospital-as ill-run as public transportation-and then the psychiatric ward, where he is described as "pathologically unable to commit to an opinion for fear of displeasing the questioner." In the meantime, Edward's loopy wife, Adele, quits taking her medication and gets a nose job, and Jack's mother opens her humble home to a bevy of crack addicts. The three story lines are masterfully and hilariously interwoven, and the book's delightfully absurd characters (especially Edward, and Jack's mother, Norma) are unforgettable. This madcap romp through England is sure to delight Anglophiles and the many fans of Townsend's beloved Adrian Mole books.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

British novelist Townsend, who has already earned an army of ardent fans with her series of books on the hapless diarist Adrian Mole, is characteristically hilarious in this hybrid that combines social satire with an odd-couple road trip. The buddy team includes Jack, a policeman who grew up on the edge of squalor but manages to emerge a decent and levelheaded man. The other half is Edward, reared in privilege to take his all-but-predestined place as prime minister. Struck with the realization that he has no idea what life is like for ordinary citizens, Edward sets off, incognito, for a week-long safari into the land of the common folk, with Jack as his escort. Because it's hard for the prime minister to travel unnoticed, he does what any sensible man would do--slips into a wig and high heels and becomes "Edwina." The book doesn't lack for skewering observations of the upper and lower classes, but Edward and Jack are both such well-meaning characters, the book comes off ultimately as more affirming than biting. Karen Holt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Soho Press
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1569473498
• ISBN 13: 9781569473498
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 288