![]() ![]() This is a sharp, poignant and wickedly funny tale of love, heartache and disillusionment. Did her letter have something to do with Joan's abrupt disappearance from number forty-one? What to make of the long absences of her husband and Joan's, and of the two men's new, inseparable friendship? And why will no one else on Rathbone Road speak of Joan? As Eliza's own life seems to disintegrate, she finds that, despite the pity and embarrassment with which her neighbours greet her, she is at last being drawn into their lives - although not in the way she had once fantasised about. It is just such a one-sided correspondence that heralds Eliza's undoing. Born in 1928 in North Yorkshire, she was the daughter of a school-teacher (although he was the son of a farmer and, she says, always had half his mind back on the farm) and a mother who longed to. Her concern for the welfare of her wealthy south London neighbours even extends to ingenuous, well-meaning notes of unsolicited advice under the door. She is also the author of God on the Rocks. She is a modern-day Florence Nightingale, always up at the Hospice or the Wives' club she is too enthusiastic she talks too much. About the Author Jane Gardam has twice won the Whitbread Award, for The Hollow Land, and Queen of the Tambourine. Eliza Peabody is one of those dangerously blameless women who believe they have God in their pocket. ![]()
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