Description

‘Delightful… Her characters are, as always, wonderfully imperfect’ New York Review of Books

Alan has changed because he’s injured his back. Pain has altered his appearance and made him glum, demanding and resentful. His wife Jane has to do everything for him – fetching, carrying, shopping, cooking, even dressing and undressing him. Sometimes she longs for escape.

Delia is a writer and researcher specialising in fairy tales – she is, in her own estimation, a ‘Great Artist’. Her husband, Henry, manages her every need making certain Delia gets everything she desires including spectacular doses of adulation.

Can Delia coax Alan out of his grumpiness? Can Henry stop Jane feeling guilty? Can the two couples break out of their fixed roles?

‘I am re-reading with enormous delight and greed. If you’re new to [Lurie], lucky you: marvellously astute comedies of social, moral and sexual manners, her witty exuberance is nothing short of inspirational’ Helen Simpson

Publisher Review

I am re-reading with enormous delight and greed. If you're new to [Lurie], lucky you: marvellously astute comedies of social, moral and sexual manners, her witty exuberance is nothing short of inspirational. -- Helen Simpson Mordant and entertaining, and wonderfully expansive about a time, a place, and the corrosive effect of selfishness * Spectator * Hours of bitter-sweet, highly intelligent fun * Scotsman * An enjoyably spiky minuet of human selfishness * The Times * Sly and funny. A deeply pleasurable page-turner * Observer * It is Lurie, not Updike whom people will one day read to discover what our life and times were really like. Dazzling intelligent, witty, perceptive and engaging, she is not to be missed * New Statesman * An enjoyably spiky minuet of human selfishness -- Jane Shilling * The Times * Lurie is the reigning queen of a certain kind of academic comedy... Truth & Consequences is a deeply pleasurable page-turner -- Rachel Cooke * Observer * Lurie's entertaining novel charts these symmetrical relationships with subtlety and compassion, and thoughtfully examines the balance of power between those who give and require care * Daily Mail * Lurie expertly maps the downward marital slope: the slow falling out of love, the undignified transformations of middle age, the interplay of eros and hypochondria... The author's satirical gifts are undiminished * Wall Street Journal *