Unless - Softcover

Unless Edition: First

Softcover

ISBN 10: 096504419X ISBN 13: 9780965044196

Publisher: Fourth Estate, 2002

Synopsis

Reta Winters took her husband Tom's surname when they first got together (part of the reason being that she was originally Reta Summers and they both agreed that one of the seasons had to change). In lots of ways, this information (which is almost the opposite of a revelation, whatever the word for that is) contains the genesis of this novel writ small. They have three daughters together, Reta and Tom, the oldest of whom decides on the cusp of her nineteenth birthday to throw up her studies and live on the street with a simple cardboard sign - on which the word GOODNESS is written - on a string around her neck. Reta has no idea why her daughter has chosen this path and that - the abstract decision to withdraw from the life you are expected to live - throws the world out of kilter. To all intents and purposes life continues on as it did before (Reta and Tom still sleep together, Reta continues to write the sequel to her comic novel, the family entertain at Christmas). Beneath the surface, however, and within Reta, you realise that the world these characters inhabit has come to resemble nothing so much as the scab that forms over damaged skin.

About this edition

• Publisher: Fourth Estate
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 096504419X
• ISBN 13: 9780965044196
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1