Pause Between Acts (an author inscribed first printing)

Joan, a recent divorcee, keeps her life under control through a series of fantastic stories told to her parents and her ex-husband, but her control starts slipping when she is introduced to actor Finbar Flynn

So breezy and accomplished is this debut that it's easy to overlook the slight plot and the hard-to-swallow goings-on narrated by Londoner Joan. Abandoned by her husband, Joan becomes a recluse, shunning her kind neighbors, refusing to take part in the activities of the school where she works and spurning the advances of Robin, a particularly toothsome gym teacher. Nothing avails until an actor named Finbar Flynn escapes from a New Year's Eve party next door and descends upon her. Joan, swilling vodka, decked in her wedding gown, chrysanthemums sprouting from her hair, takes one look and loses her heart. Finbar responds, but not carnally, and although he sends flowers with a note praising her charming eccentricity, he slips mysteriously away. But they meet by chance when she goes to the theater with Robin, an encounter that twists the plot and sets it on a rollicking, unexpected path to denouement. Although the effort to be funny is sometimes apparent, there's a lot of hilarity in a book that makes no pretense of building character or uttering solemnities but proposes, simply, to amuse.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Any woman who has been left by her husband for a younger woman can identify with this decidedly British first novel. Joan has been rather unceremoniously dropped by her filmmaker husband, and she deals with the pain through seclusion and too much vodka. To maintain this seclusion, she invents a Nigerian woman lodger to keep her parents from visiting and a lesbian affair with said lodger to keep her ex-husband from returning. As if this weren't enough, the phys. ed. teacher wants her, as does roguish actor Finbar Flynn. Romantic farce ensues. Narrator Joan has a wry, dark wit and though this novel is engaging and amusing, it is slight. Its very English style and vocabulary may put off some, but it's a fun bit of fluff. Rosellen Brewer, Monterey Cty. Lib., Seaside, Cal.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.