Description
‘Remember how we used to dream of going to France? Haven’t you ever envied me for doing it? You’d love it Polly. Time you did it yourself. For yourself. Have you ever done anything for yourself, not just Gordon and the kids?
A New Zealand woman, entrenched in small town domesticity, is invited to spend the summer in France. Can she arrange her responsibilities and guilts to release her for the summer? Will the contrast between a sheltered isolated life and the sophistication of Europe prove too dramatic?
This novel poses the questions about the choices women make, how irrevocable they might be, and whether they may be altered by chance encounters and happenings. Do we have the right to meddle in, or try to redirect, other people’s lives?
‘The marked divergence which has occurred in the lives of two former university friends, the worldly-wise, unattached Eleanor and small town wife and mother Paula is realistic and engaging. The contract between the unsophisticated world of Rivertown and the cosmopolitan setting of London, Paris and Brittany is well depicted.’ Graeme Lay
‘…very evocative, very moving. Beautifully paced and structures.’ Bron Deed
Gwenyth Perry lives and writes in Auckland, and France whenever possible. She has stories in both collections of 100 NZ Short Short Stories edited by Graeme Lay, she came third in the Sunday Star Times competition in 1997, and her stories have won several prizes. Hew work has been published in both New Zealand and Singapore. Her husband and three adult children do not appear in her writing.
Paperback, 186 pages. In excellent preloved condition.