Only Human
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Headline Publishing Group
Published:7th Mar '05
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
A subtle and intimate portrayal of contemporary life
Marjorie Hemming, marriage guidance counsellor, craves concord and harmony the way other people need cigarettes. But cracks are starting to show in the world she's so carefully remade after her early widowhood. Some of her couples refuse to kiss and make up: even Nurse Rose, the TV heroine who looks so like Marjorie, seems about to make a foolhardy blunder. When her adored teenage daughter unexpectedly moves out, this professional expert on human affairs is forced to look at matters a little closer to home.
'Addictive... In this energising read, Boyt brilliantly captures the linguistic gymnastics of the therapy room. In Marjorie, she has created an Anne Tyler character in the English mould.' Independent 18/03/2005 * Independent *
'Quirky, poignant and often painfully funny' Sunday Express, 5/6/05 * Sunday Express *
'There is more than a hint of the sharply humorous style of Muriel Spark in this pleasantly quirky novel... Boyt paints the unravelling of her heroine's tenuous grip on reality with economical but expressive brush strokes - and delivers more than a few deliciously comic moments along the way' The Sunday Times 8/5/05 * The Sunday Times 8/5/05 *
'Elegantly simple and consistently unpretentious...Only Human is a delicate and moving portrait of someone full of faith, trying, heroically, to do her best.' Daily Telegraph 19/03/2005 * Daily Telegraph (Isobel Shirlaw) *
'Anyone suspicious of counselling will delight in Susie Boyt's portrayal of the emotional collapse of a marriage guidance councellor.' Guardian 19/03/2005 * Guardian (Isabel Montgomery) *
ISBN: 9780747265160
Dimensions: 196mm x 128mm x 20mm
Weight: 180g
256 pages