The Pumpkin Eater

Fiction & Literature, Psychological, Family Life, Literary
Cover of the book The Pumpkin Eater by Penelope Mortimer, New York Review Books
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Penelope Mortimer ISBN: 9781590174005
Publisher: New York Review Books Publication: April 26, 2011
Imprint: NYRB Classics Language: English
Author: Penelope Mortimer
ISBN: 9781590174005
Publisher: New York Review Books
Publication: April 26, 2011
Imprint: NYRB Classics
Language: English

The Pumpkin Eater is a surreal black comedy about the wages of adulthood and the pitfalls of parenthood. A nameless woman speaks, at first from the precarious perch of a therapist’s couch, and her smart, wry, confiding, immensely sympathetic voice immediately captures and holds our attention. She is the mother of a vast, swelling brood of children, also nameless, and the wife of a successful screenwriter, Jake Armitage. The Armitages live in the city, but they are building a great glass tower in the country in which to settle down and live happily ever after. But could that dream be nothing more than a sentimental delusion? At the edges of vision the spectral children come and go, while our heroine, alert to the countless gradations of depression and the innumerable forms of betrayal, tries to make sense of it all: doctors, husbands, movie stars, bodies, grocery lists, nursery rhymes, messes, aging parents, memories, dreams, and breakdowns. How to pull it all together? Perhaps you start by falling apart.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

The Pumpkin Eater is a surreal black comedy about the wages of adulthood and the pitfalls of parenthood. A nameless woman speaks, at first from the precarious perch of a therapist’s couch, and her smart, wry, confiding, immensely sympathetic voice immediately captures and holds our attention. She is the mother of a vast, swelling brood of children, also nameless, and the wife of a successful screenwriter, Jake Armitage. The Armitages live in the city, but they are building a great glass tower in the country in which to settle down and live happily ever after. But could that dream be nothing more than a sentimental delusion? At the edges of vision the spectral children come and go, while our heroine, alert to the countless gradations of depression and the innumerable forms of betrayal, tries to make sense of it all: doctors, husbands, movie stars, bodies, grocery lists, nursery rhymes, messes, aging parents, memories, dreams, and breakdowns. How to pull it all together? Perhaps you start by falling apart.

More books from New York Review Books

Cover of the book The Stammering Century by Penelope Mortimer
Cover of the book Blackballed by Penelope Mortimer
Cover of the book Almost Nothing: The 20th-Century Art and Life of Józef Czapski by Penelope Mortimer
Cover of the book The Fire Horse: Children's Poems by Vladimir Mayakovsky, Osip Mandelstam and Daniil Kharms by Penelope Mortimer
Cover of the book Proud Beggars by Penelope Mortimer
Cover of the book The Cowshed by Penelope Mortimer
Cover of the book Grand Hotel by Penelope Mortimer
Cover of the book The Milk of Dreams by Penelope Mortimer
Cover of the book Journey by Moonlight by Penelope Mortimer
Cover of the book The Dove Flyer by Penelope Mortimer
Cover of the book Vasko Popa by Penelope Mortimer
Cover of the book How Shostakovich Changed My Mind by Penelope Mortimer
Cover of the book All for Nothing by Penelope Mortimer
Cover of the book A Month in the Country by Penelope Mortimer
Cover of the book The White Stones by Penelope Mortimer
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy