The Mellow Madam and Other Stories
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Salt Publishing
Published:11th Aug '25
Should be back in stock very soon
From the septuagenarian prostitute exposed in a tabloid sting to the Queen Bee of a local dramatic society upstaged by her cleaner; from the nine-year-old girl caught in the crossfire of her parents’ divorce to the widow stranded on an Antarctic cruise during the COVID pandemic; from the doctor’s wife confronting the enormity of her husband’s online dealings to the forgotten musical comedy star yearning to return to the spotlight; these twelve captivating and compelling stories explore a diverse range of female experience. By turn humorous and poignant, whimsical and provocative, they make for richly rewarding reading.
The tone and the mood of the stories are richly varied: at times, his writing verges on dark comedy; at others, it feels mythical and dramatic. I hope that people will enter into Arditti’s world — and I suspect that the lives and faces that linger for each reader will reflect the stories that resonate most deeply with our lives and stories. Part of the beauty of what Arditti does is to invite us to find our full self and our true meaning in the lives that he creates and opens up for us.
-- Richard Lamey * Church Times *I think these are brilliant. They are a mix of the everyday and the remarkable – quite dark in places and really cleverly assembled.
-- Petroc Trelawny * The TimISBN: 9781784632977
Dimensions: 178mm x 111mm x 23mm
Weight: unknown
320 pages