The Dressmaker

'The book I wish I'd written . . . Witty, chilling, every word in place.' Hilary Mantel

Wartime Liverpool is a place of ration books and munitions factories. Seventeen-year-old Rita, living with her two aunts Nellie and Margo, is emotionally naïve and withdrawn. When she meets Ira, an American soldier, at a neighbour's party, she falls in love almost as much with the idea of life as a GI bride as with the man himself. Where Liverpool is grim and impoverished, America is gay and rich – Rita knows; she's seen it in the movies. But Nellie and Margo are not nearly so blind . . .

Shortlisted for the 1973 Booker Prize, The Dressmaker is a darkly comic tale about the unexpected consequences of a young girl's heartbreak.