Evelyn Axon is a medium by trade; her daughter, Muriel, is a half-wit by nature. Barricaded in their crumbling house, surrounded by the festering rubbish of years, they defy the curiosity of their neighbors and their social worker, Isabel Field. Isabel is young and inexperienced and has troubles of her own: an elderly father who wanders the streets, and a lover, Colin, who wants her to run away with him. But Colin has three horrible children and a shrill wife who is pregnant again--how is he going to run anywhere? As Isabel wrestles with her own problems, a horrible secret grows in the darkness of the Axon household. When at last it comes to light, the result is by turns hilarious and terrifying.
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“Mantel proves that even early on she was an excellent prose stylist and storyteller, expert at threading quirky characterization with black humor and a somewhat macabre imagination.”
— Publishers Weekly
“A giddy cocktail of horror and gleeful anticipation.”
— New York Times“Mantel continually produces novels that chart fresh terrain and derive from a wellspring of creative imagination.”
— Library Journal“An exhilarating combination of kitchen-sink realism and grim expressionist farce: convincing further proof that Mantel is one of England’s best contemporary novelists.”
— Kirkus ReviewsBe the first to write a review about this audiobook!
Hilary Mantel (1952-2022) was a #1 New York Times bestselling author and two-time winner of the Booker Prize for her bestselling novels, Wolf Hall, and its sequel, Bring Up the Bodies. The final novel of the Wolf Hall trilogy, The Mirror & the Light, debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and won critical acclaim around the globe. She wrote more than a dozen books, including A Place of Greater Safety, Beyond Black, and the memoir Giving Up the Ghost.
Sandra Duncan is a multi-award winning actress who has appeared as Mrs. Birling in An Inspector Calls, as Bernarda in The House of Bernarda Alba for Shared Experience, and in the West End productions of Abelard and Eloise and The Secretary Bird. Her television credits include appearances in Midsomer Murders, Silk, and as a series regular in Westgate for SABC. She lives and works in London.