The Bowl is Already Broken

A big, rewarding novel about art, politics, family, terrorism, courage, and happiness

Promise Whittaker is the diminutive, cartoon-voiced acting director of the National Museum of Asian Art. Her mentor, the previous director, is lost in the Taklamakan desert. And Promise, perspicacious about everything but what's going on under her nose, is the last to realise that the museum is in danger of being turned into a cafe.Promise Whittaker is the diminutive, cartoon-voiced acting director of the National Museum of Asian Art. Her mentor, the previous director, is now lost in the Taklamakan desert. Her favourite curator has dropped their newest, most precious, treasure - at the ceremony to celebrate its acquisition. Another colleague is embezzling museum funds to pay for fertility treatments. And Promise, perspicacious about everything but what's going on under her nose, is the last to realise that the museum is in danger of being turned into a cafe and that she's pregnant - again. In "Promise", juggling crises at home and at work, Mary Kay Zuravleff has created one of the most loveable and offbeat heroines in recent fiction.