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About the Author

Jane Gardam has been awarded the Heywood Hill Literary Prize for a lifetime's contribution to the enjoyment of literature. She has twice won a Whitbread Award and has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Her most recent novel, OLD FILTH, was shortlisted for the Orange Prize 2005.

Reviews

'her new collection exemplifies Gardam's zest for human oddity, which she explores with characteristic empathy and humour.' - Literary Review 'Gardam's touch is deft and light...she's such a good writer...This is Jane Gardam's 16th book of fiction: may it not be her last' - The Spectator

In these 14 stories set in England, Gardam (The Flight of the Maidens) writes efficiently and amusingly about old age, insensitive youth, strange events, and ordinary life. Some stories, such as "Pangbourne," about a woman who bonds with a gorilla at the zoo, and "Babette," about an aging writer who gives away a cast-iron bathtub, are wonderfully bizarre. Others, like "The Hair of the Dog" and "The Fledgling," deal with the inevitable misunderstanding between parents and their children. Two of the best stories are the title story and "The Latter Days of Mr. Jones." In the former, we find Edward Feathers from Gardam's novel Old Filth on his way to a luncheon that ultimately ends in social disaster for the hostess but satisfying amusement for the reader. In the latter, the title character is a gentle elderly man who is quietly living out his days in a neighborhood that has become increasingly contemporary and thus suspicious of old men who enjoy sitting in the park watching children play. Gardam has created characters that are charming and touching and has edged them with her barbed humor. Recommended for all fiction collections.--Joy Humphrey, Pepperdine Law Lib., Malibu, CA Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.