Happy Accidents - Softcover

Murray, Tiffany

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007183666 ISBN 13: 9780007183661

Publisher: Fourth Estate, 2004

Synopsis

Kate Happy's favourite books are Jane Eyre and Salem's Lot, because they're English and American, and so is she. It's the early eighties and Kate is being brought up by her grandparents on their huge sprawling farm, somewhere between England and Wales.

Gran has been homesick for Coney Island for thirty-eight years, hating her husband but determinedly donning her best pink Chanel suit and high heels to step out into the muck-splattered farmyard. Grandpa is bonkers, an ex-naval Captain who wanders round the house shouting sea-faring commands. Mum's gone AWOL since she ran over Kate's dad in her soft-top Triumph Spitfire. And are those really Dad's ashes in a Hellmann's mayonnaise jar in the attic?

This is not a pastoral and isolated rural Britain. This is a time of The Specials and Ghost Town; Friday The 13th, and the riots to come.

Crackling with the darkest of dark humour, brimming with crazy ancestors and closely guarded secrets, HAPPY ACCIDENTS is a wonderful first novel that confirms Tiffany Murray as a rising star of British fiction.

About this title

Review:

'...witty, romantic and irreverent...Inventive, funny and affecting, this is a story that is powerful without being mawkish.' -- Daily Mail

'Along with her whip-cracking dialogue, it is quirky images that are Murray's forte' -- Observer

'Murray has shown she is a writer of singular felicity whose first novel holds out strong promise for the future' -- Peter Carty, Independent

Synopsis:

Kate Happy's favourite books are Jane Eyre and 'Salem's Lot, because they're English and American and so is she. It's the early eighties and Kate is being brought up by her grandparents on their huge sprawling farm, somewhere between England and Wales. Kate Happy's favourite books are Jane Eyre and 'Salem's Lot, because they're English and American and so is she. It's the early eighties and Kate is being brought up by her grandparents on their huge sprawling farm, somewhere between England and Wales. Gran has been homesick for Coney Island for thirty-eight years, hating her husband but determinedly donning her best pink Chanel suit and high heels to step out into the muck-splattered farmyard. Grandpa is bonkers, an ex-naval Captain who wanders round the house shouting sea-faring commands. Mum's gone AWOL since she ran over Kate's dad in her soft-top Triumph Spitfire. And are those really Dad's ashes in a Hellmann's mayonnaise jar in the attic? This is not a pastoral and isolated rural Britain. This is a time of The Specials and Ghost Town; Friday The 13th, and the riots to come.

Crackling with the darkest of dark humour, brimming with crazy ancestors and closely guarded secrets, HAPPY ACCIDENTS is a wonderful first novel that confirms Tiffany Murray as a rising star of British fiction

About this edition

• Publisher: Fourth Estate
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0007183666
• ISBN 13: 9780007183661
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 368