Oh Dear Silvia
The gloriously heartwarming novel from the No. 1 bestselling author of Because of You
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
Discover the gloriously heartwarming and funny novel from No. 1 bestselling author of Women's Prize shortlisted Richard & Judy pick BECAUSE OF YOU, Dawn French
'A wonderful writer - witty, wise, poignant' DAILY MAIL
'Hilarious. My top book' THE TIMES
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Everyone knows the real Silvia, don't they?
Silvia Shute lies in hospital in a coma.
Family and friends gather at her bedside, each thinking they know the real Silvia. But do they?
For Silvia hides a secret. One she can never tell. And as her visitors congregate, so the truth about Silvia is slowly revealed.
Again, and again and again . . .
__________
PRAISE FOR DAWN FRENCH:
'Fantastic, passionate, compassionate, so much wisdom, a lot of humour, very real and credible' BERNARDINE EVARISTO
'I adored it. So charming, wise and brilliantly written' MARIAN KEYES
'Think the Vicar of Dibley, without the dog collar' INDEPENDENT
'Dawn tackles the big ones - love, death, grief, childhood, motherhood, parenthood - head on' GUARDIAN
'A fantastic slam-dunk pageturner. Funny, enriching . . . page after page I laughed out loud' MAIL ON SUNDAY
'A hilarious snapshot of family life in the twenty-first century' SUNDAY TIMES
'Extremely funny' SUNDAY TIMES
'Side-splitting, darkly humorous' HEAT
'Makes you laugh on every page' THE TIMES
'A brilliantly observed, very funny novel of family life' WOMAN & HOME
'Funny, really enjoyable, highly recommended' DAILY MAIL
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The eponymous Silvia of this darkly comic novel, the second from popular British comedienne French, lies in a coma after a fall from her balcony. Each chapter features a visitor to her bedside, including Ed, her banally silly ex-husband; Jo, her frighteningly silly sister; Cat, her "best best ever friend" (self-described); Winnie, her good-hearted Jamaican nurse; Tia, her not-so-good-hearted East Asian housekeeper; and her estranged adult children, Jamie and Cassie. Their musings, elliptically, relate how Silvia came to be lying in a coma in a hospital somewhere in England, and, more tellingly, reveal something of the visitors' own lives. With a couple of exceptions (Winnie and Jamie), those lives are maddeningly inane: Ed tries (and predictably fails) to kill himself; Cat can't believe Silvia doesn't share her romantic feelings; and Jo is an "unhinged woman with acres of confidence, which is a worrisome combination." All three make the novel an uneasy, uneven mixture of farce and pathos, but it's funny and, occasionally, impressively well written. One section, about Jamie's experience in Afghanistan, is particularly fine, but very much at odds with the otherwise slapstick tone.
