Hens Dancing
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- $18.99
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
A truly funny, intelligently told story that takes you deep into someone else's life
'Should be read for Barker's glittering prose ... Venetia is a disarmingly wry and engaging narrator with a keen eye for nature and the follies of urban chic' Financial Times
'A positive hymn to provincial living, it is an entertaining celebration of family life with all its highs, lows and eccentricities' The Times
When Venetia Summers's husband runs off with his masseuse, the bohemian idyll she has strived to create for her young family suddenly loses some of its rosy hue. From her tumble-down cottage in Norfolk she struggles to keep up with the chaos caused by her two boys, her splendid baby daughter and the hordes of animals, relatives and would-be artists that live in her home.
From juggling errant cockerels, jam-making frenzies and Warhammers, to unexpected romance, Bloody Mary's and forays into fashion design, Hens Dancing is like a rural Bridget Jones's Diary as it charts a year of Venetia's madcap household.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
British magazine columnist Barker channels a postmodern Erma Bombeck in her thinly plotted yet charming U.S. debut, a year-in-the-life story told via the journal entries of Venetia Summers, a transplanted Londoner living in the Norfolk countryside. Feisty, 35-year-old Venetia has recently shed her philandering, ex-soldier husband, Charles, "who fries cuddly animals for a living." While Charles is thriving in the pet crematorium business and reveling in his new romance with "poison dwarf" Helena, Venetia delouses her sons Felix and Giles; staggers after her hyperactive eight-month-old daughter, "The Beauty"; and tackles laundry and gardening to avoid writing copy for corporate brochures. As house and garden deteriorate around her, Venetia bewails her fading looks and dependence on her mother, seeking solace in junk food, friends, trashy clothes and Georgette Heyer romance novels. She also refuses to admit that she has a serious crush on David Lanyon, the cute carpenter who volunteers to renovate her bathroom; in exchange, she takes photos for his publicity brochure. Barker keeps things wickedly off-kilter, subjecting various characters to unforeseeable disasters and indignities: one eats a toxic mushroom, one chops off his finger and another stumbles poolside only to have a "bit of his head" gobbled up by an affectionate Labrador. Readers who share Venetia's enthusiasm for Georgette Heyer will guess where Barker's predictable tale is heading, but the newer author's caustic pen will endear her to grownups who like their women quick-witted and their fairy tales fractured.
