Rich Deceiver - Softcover

Gillian White

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1857992563 ISBN 13: 9781857992564

Publisher: Phoenix (an Imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd ), 1995

Synopsis

Money changes everything in this darkly comic tale of romantic revenge. When shy, insecure Liverpudlian Ellie Freeman unexpectedly wins more than a million pounds in the football betting pools, she sees it as a way to transform the life of her bitter, frustrated, and, above all, distant husband Malcolm. She hides the news of her win from Malc, and uses the money to invest in a firm that will give her husband a better job than the warehouseman position he currently holds. And, indeed, the new job does make Malc a new man - a new man who suddenly envisions a life without Ellie. Can Ellie, too, become a new person? Can she become a stronger, more confident woman who is capable of winning her husband back¿and is that even what she wants anymore?

About this title

About the Author

Dina is an actress living and working in New York City. Dina has been seen in various roles in movies, TV and in the theater. She has also done some stand-up comedy. She has written two one-woman shows. Dina is originally from New Jersey.

From Kirkus Reviews

Like satirist Fay Weldon, first-novelist White deals with what Weldon's booster quote here refers to as ``domestic infamy'': here, in a tale of an ego-squashed little wife in search of her husband's love, who--after some bizarre plotting and precipitous pratfalls- -emerges fulfilled, fat, and free-standing. Ellie Freeman and husband Malcolm, both in their 40s, live in the unlovely Liverpool neighborhood of Nelson Street. In a dressing gown ``the color of a cornflake,'' Ellie listens to Malcolm, an overweight warehouseman, growling downstairs--but in her pocket she hides a letter announcing that she's won œ1,525,000 in a sweepstake. After several frazzled starts, Ellie decides to ``buy'' Malcolm a career by investing in a struggling blinds-firm that would be thereby obliged to hire her husband. (All this secretly, with the curiously interested help of a bank executive.) The magic wand is waved, and Malcolm is transformed from ``moaning, miserable and hopeless'' to confident, glib, and charming. But two cars and a bungalow later, Ellie discovers that she's become even more insecure and lonely, and, worse, she's created in Malcolm a monster, arisen from Nelson Street clay. He leaves her for the stunning gallery-manager Gabriella, whose clothes ``flutter several feet behind her.'' Ellie's revenge on the way to recapturing Malcolm--a virtuoso performance involving the roosting of Nelson Street's most colorful citizens amongst the posh, along with general mayhem--is blunted by wholesale betrayal. But Ellie, hitherto rattled, buffeted, living for and in another, will finally find herself--``confused, funny, pathetic, emotional but basically likeable.'' An entertaining debut from a sure English talent, with not only a satiric thrust but a wealth of gritty, compassionate recognitions--as well as the knowledge that in poor neighborhoods, the dawn does not arise but merely ``flops'' and ``slinks.'' -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Phoenix (an Imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd )
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 1857992563
• ISBN 13: 9781857992564
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304