The Following Girls - Hardcover

Levene, Louise

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1408842890 ISBN 13: 9781408842898

Publisher: Bloomsbury Circus, 2014

Synopsis

When Amanda Baker was 14 she found a letter written by her runaway mother to her unborn child: 'Dear Jeremy' it began 'or Amanda...'

Mrs Baker still sends Christmas presents - Meccano, a fishing rod, a Spare Rib subscription - but her daughter is now in the coolly capable hands of Mr Baker's second wife, Pam, who trots home from work on her stacked heels to her formica 'dream kitchen', where she curls butter, grills grapefruit and swigs sherry from the bottle hidden under the sink. Meanwhile Amanda's dad, soured by his experiences with free-spirited women, crossbreeds fuchsias and salivates over glossy prospectuses in search of a new school for his disappointing daughter.

The happiest days of your life? Not for Baker, sixteen and sick of it as she moves miserably between lessons packed with palm fibre and the use of the dative. Baker's only solace is her fifth form gang - the four Mandies - and a low-calorie diet of king-sized cigarettes, until she teams up with Julia Smith, games captain and consummate game player. And so begins a passionate friendship that will threaten her future, menace her sanity and risk the betrayal of everything and everyone she holds dear.

The Following Girls weaves the minutiae of Seventies girlhood into an unsparing tragi-comedy of shrinking horizons, dangerous alliances and not-so-happy families.

About this title

Review

Levene's sharply observed comedy mixes affectionate satire of the stylistic oddities of the time with an invigorating sparkle of real dislike for the petty tyrannies of parental and pedagogical authority (Evening Standard)

An acerbic and gloriously evocative portrait of Seventies girlhood ... It fizzes with cracking one-liners, acute observations and acidic social satire. It's funny, boisterous and sharp (Sunday Telegraph)

She writes with such energy and panache that I found myself screaming with laughter ... Her characters are a delight [and] she gets the period beautifully right, so that one is all the time aware of the serious intent behind all the gruesome fun (Barbara Trapido)

A clever and extremely entertaining study of teenage claustrophobia (Independent)

A chance to relive the days of double maths and ciggies behind the bike sheds (Good Housekeeping)

Simultaneously funny - wryly and sometimes bleakly so - and painful to read (Sunday Times)

An acutely observed and witty portrayal of the school exploits and growing pains of a 1970s teenager . Knowing and funny, this is St Trinian's for grown-ups ***** (The Lady)

Reflective, bittersweet and frequently funny (Metro)

Book Description

For fans of An Education and My Summer of Love - a powerful and biting social satire about a girl struggling to find freedom in 1970s suburbia

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Circus
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1408842890
• ISBN 13: 9781408842898
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 272