The Queen Of The Tambourine
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4.3 • 7 Ratings
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- £4.99
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- £4.99
Publisher Description
Eliza Peabody is one of those dangerously blameless women who believes she has God in her pocket. She is too enthusiastic; she talks too much. Her concern for the welfare of her wealthySouth London neighbours extends to ingenuous well-meaning notes of unsolicited adviceunder the door.
It is just such a one-sided correspondence that heralds Eliza's undoing. Did her letter have something to do with the woman's abrupt disappearance ? Why will no-one else speak of her? And why the watchful, pitying looks and embarassment that now greet her?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This splendidly engaging, quirky epistolary novel is told from the point of view of Eliza Peabody, a middle-aged woman living in present-day South London. Eliza is an exceptionally unreliable narrator who begins a fervid letter-writing campaign to her neighbor, Joan, after Joan abandons her husband and children to go see the world. Early on, Eliza writes: ``After all, any woman must be sick who can leave that wonderful house, those two energetic children, all Charles's money and dear, uncomplaining Charles himself.... Turkey, Afghanistan, Nepal, China--all this was done by Victorian women, Joan. There is no need for us to follow the intrepid trail again.'' Soon it becomes clear that Eliza's letters are attempts by one woman to keep another woman down and, by doing so, to justify her own listless life. But Eliza's effort slides into temporary madness. It is revealed that Eliza receives no responses to the scores of letters she writes Joan; that Eliza hardly knows Joan and that, in fact, she doesn't even mail all the letters. This last bit of knowledge becomes increasingly important as, ironically, Eliza's letters allow her to tell her own story. A series of bizarre twists follow one another (for instance, Joan's husband and Eliza's husband move in together) as Gardam knits together antic humor, a complex narrator and a sophisticated narrative form, all the while showing an admirable trust in the reader's ability to perceive the intricate pattern she has woven.
