Easy Peasy
A Novel
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
The past haunts the present as a woman struggles to liberate herself from her family’s dark history
This masterfully written novel plumbs the mysteries of the female psyche in a tale of buried family secrets and obsessive love.
Zelda is getting ready for a date with her older lover, Foxy, whom she’s sure is about to dump her, when the call comes. Zelda’s father has hanged himself.
His suicide brings back terrifying childhood memories of screams in the night. A POW in a Japanese prison camp during World War II, Ralph Dawkins was haunted by a nightmare: the guilty secret he harbored. Zelda’s journey into the past brings back troubling questions that were never answered. Why did her father seem to prefer Vassily Pudilchuck, a friendless and disfigured neighborhood boy, to Zelda and her sister, Hazel? How did Vassily end up brutally assaulted? Zelda’s own jealousies and bitter sibling rivalry have cast a long shadow across her present life.
A novel about the things that remain unspoken, Easy Peasy is a stunning tale of love and forgiveness in the face of dark and unsettling truth.
“Utterly satisfying . . . beautifully structured and almost painfully tender.” —The Sunday Telegraph
“Step into the world of family secrets, lies and whispers in the dark. . . . compelling and an extremely good read.” —Daily Mail
“Vivid characterization . . . true, honest and powerfully realized.” —The Guardian
“Penetrates the deepest corners of the female psyche.” —The Mail on Sunday
“Glaister understands that forgiveness is something to be earned by her characters, not merely bestowed on them by their author.” —Publishers Weekly
“Glaister mixes a cool victim/tormenter tale with the heated pulse of an obsessed love affair. . . . She keeps one reading.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Splendidly accomplished.” —The Times (London)
Lesley Glaister (b. 1956) is a British novelist, playwright, and teacher of writing, currently working at the University of St Andrews. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a member of the Society of Authors. Her first novel, Honour Thy Father, was published in 1990 and received both a Somerset Maugham Award and a Betty Trask Award. Glaister became known for her darkly humorous works and has been dubbed the Queen of Domestic Gothic. Glaister was named Yorkshire Author of the Year in 1998 for her novel Easy Peasy, which was shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Award in 1998. Now You See Me was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2002. Glaister lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, with her husband, author Andrew Greig.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
On the day that Griselda spends bracing herself to be dumped by her female lover, Foxy, Griselda's father hangs himself. So begins the poignant, absorbing seventh novel from England's Glaister (whose Honour Thy Father won the Somerset Maugham Award). Griselda's grief and rage over this final rejection--the last step in her father's lifelong flight from his family--forces her to explore painful childhood memories: even as a woman in her 20s, she can't forget being awakened by his tortured nightmares of life as a POW in Japan, nightmares he would never describe. Nor can she forget his strange closeness to Wanda, the woman next door, and Wanda's lonely, funny-looking son whom the other children called "Puddleduck." Haunted by childhood jealousy and resentment (and by guilt for a cruel act of revenge she took against Puddleduck), Griselda must face him and Wanda and the indelible mark they have left on her life. From the simple joys and fears of childhood to the alternating warmth and insecurity of Griselda's relationship with Foxy, this superbly detailed novel pieces together the life of its unlikely heroine and does so with grace, humor and a deft stream-of-consciousness plot that cherishes ordinary things on its way to epiphanies. Griselda eventually discovers the terrible secret that her father had hidden for so many years, and her perception of him is irrevocably altered. As this satisfying ending proves, Glaister understands that forgiveness is something to be earned by her characters, not merely bestowed on them by their author.
