Books by Pauline Holdstock

An outrageously comic novel documents a middle-aged writer and mother's grappling with mid-life crisisher husband's and her own.Preoccupied with her fledgling literary career, intent on the all-consuming consolations of philosophy, and scrambling to meet the demands of her four children, the acutely myopic and chronically inattentive Vita Glass doesnt notice that herhouse and her marriage are competing to see which can fall apart fastest. Shecan barely find time for her writing career, and just when her newfound success in vegetable erotica is beginning to take off.Our heroines only tried and trusted escape is the blissful detachment of Keith's hairdressing salon, but when her husband leaves the country, unannounced, she decides to do likewisein the opposite direction, and with their children. Drawn from the pages of Vitas journal, this outrageously comic novel documents Vita's passage through a mid-life crisis and explores all the ways we deceive each other and ourselves.

"Holdstock's vivid, unflinching tale doesn't sugarcoat the casual brutality of the period, and is punctuated by startling moments of beauty." --Publishers Weekly