(Serpent's Tail)
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Synopsis
Anna is an ordinary woman in an extraordinary situation. She’s
having a baby, the father’s gay, her lover’s a woman and she
still hasn’t told her parents. Her best friend Ruby is feckless,
forty and fondling every man she can. Her neighbours are the OAPs from
Hell and across the road Greg is pining for Acorn, the eco-poet who abandoned
him with their baby. Into all this walks Shirley. She’s left her
provincial home and desperately needs a life: but Pearl, her mother, is
coming too.
In Around the Houses Anna and her new family deal with the consequences
of coming out; Ruby has to face up to a violent past: Shirley falls for
Greg; and Pearl finds her true self at the Cosmic Café. The subject
of this quirky, insightful and sharp novel, Balham will never be the same
again.
Biography
Amanda
Boulter is a lecturer in English at an HE college. She lives with her
partner and their two sons in Dorset
Contributors Testimonials
I
loved this book, it was very easy to read and very funny. In this, the
first of a series of novels set in South London, we meet Anna who is having
a baby - but the father's gay, and her lover is a woman, and her parents
dont even know she is a lesbian.
Reading like a female "Tales of the City", we actually empathise
with the characters as well as laughing out loud at their antics from
the the flirty Ruby who is attempting to fondle almost every man in Balham
to her OAP neighbours from hell. Around the houses is about how people
live together and learn to tolerate (or not) different identities, sexualities
and communities and how these play out on different characters resulting
in wacky humourous situations. Boulter pulls no punches and deals with
prejudice and violence head on in a realistic way. Overall a fantastic
novel and thank god it has a sequel!
Mark Ramsden