ISBN 0 7206 1176 8
Fiction
320pp
Cased
£15.95
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Tread Softly

Wendy Perriam

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Lorna, thirty-nine, is married to misanthropic Ralph, who in turn is wedded to his twenty-seven pipes and his artificial-grass business. In fact, it is a ménage à trois, the third party being Lorna's Monster, a gleefully sadistic personification of her panic attacks. The Monster has a field day when, after a botched foot operation, Lorna is sent to convalesce among the deaf and demented inmates of a nursing home from hell, where the staff have more problems than the patients. But, despite her surroundings, she starts to make new friends, discover untapped talents and even a reawakened interest in sex, thanks to the attentions of an ardent young care worker. She even gets offered a challenging new job. Meanwhile Ralph is being sued by a vindictive business client and fears he will lose his house and his livelihood.

Perriam chronicles an unconventional marriage, showing the bond that can develop between two people who have experienced a 'lost childhood'. She also takes a swipe at the medical profession and, by graphically illustrating the plight of residents in low-grade care homes, offers a devastating critique of the way our society treats the old and the infirm. Yet, throughout, Tread Softly is always leavened by the author's exuberant wit.

‘One of the finest and funniest writers to emerge in England since Kingsley Amis. She is gifted with devastating powers of observation.’ — Herald Tribune

‘Perriam is a writer of authority and skill, with a wicked ear for conversational quirks.’ — Sunday Times

‘Keen observations and lucid prose combine to produces black comedy at its wittiest, wickedest best’ — Candis

WENDY PERRIAM has had fifteen novels published to critical acclaim. Expelled from her convent school for heresy, she read history at Oxford and later trod the boards and worked in advertising. In 1980 she became a full-time writer and is currently working on her latest novel and a second collection of stories.