Small Pleasures

Claire Chambers

£8.99

A perceptive and quietly devastating tale set in 1950s suburbia

Paperback

Fiction

ISBN: 9781474613903

Published April 2024

Description

LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2021’A WORD-OF-MOUTH HIT’ Evening Standard ‘A very fine book…

It’s witty and sharp and reads like something by Barbara Pym or Anita Brookner, without ever feeling like a pastiche’David Nicholls’Perfect’India Knight ‘Beautiful’ Jessie Burton’Wonderful’Richard Osman ‘Miraculous’Tracy Chevalier ‘A wonderful novel.

I loved it’Nina Stibbe ‘Effortless to read, but every sentence lingers in the mind’ Lissa Evans ‘This is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read.

I honestly don’t want you to be without it’Lucy Mangan’Gorgeous…

If you’re looking for something escapist and bittersweet, I could not recommend more’ Pandora Sykes’Remarkable…

Small Pleasures is no small pleasure’The Times’An irresistible novel – wry, perceptive and quietly devastating’Mail on Sunday’Chambers’ eye for undemonstrative details achieves a Larkin-esque lucidity’ Guardian’An almost flawlessly written tale of genuine, grown-up romantic anguish’ The Sunday Times 1957, the suburbs of South East London.

Jean Swinney is a journalist on a local paper, trapped in a life of duty and disappointment from which there is no likelihood of escape.

When a young woman, Gretchen Tilbury, contacts the paper to claim that her daughter is the result of a virgin birth, it is down to Jean to discover whether she is a miracle or a fraud.

As the investigation turns her quiet life inside out, Jean is suddenly given an unexpected chance at friendship, love and – possibly – happiness.

But there will, inevitably, be a price to pay. Book of the Year for: The Times, Daily Telegraph, Evening Standard, Daily Express, Metro, Spectator, Red Magazine and Good Housekeeping

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Additional information

Weight 0.4 kg
Dimensions 20 × 13 × 5 cm