Getting Colder
Published on 6. November 2014
Book
Hardback
272 pages
978-0-349-00509-6 (ISBN)
Description
Shortlisted for the Encore Award for best second novel.
They were colour-supplement darlings of the 1980s: Patrick, the sexy, ferocious young playwright, scourge of an enthralled establishment, and Sara, who abandoned her two children to fulfil her destiny as Patrick's beautiful, devoted wife and muse.
Thirty-five years later, Sara's death leaves Patrick alone in their crumbling house in Cornwall, with his whisky, his writer's block and his undimmed rage against the world. But bereavement is no respecter of life's estrangements, and Sara's children, Louise and Nigel, are now adults, with memories, questions and agendas of their own. What was their mother really like? Why did she leave them? What has she left them? And how can Patrick carry on without the love of his life?
Getting Colder is a painfully funny and perceptive novel about family, love, and how sometimes the harder you look, the less you find.
They were colour-supplement darlings of the 1980s: Patrick, the sexy, ferocious young playwright, scourge of an enthralled establishment, and Sara, who abandoned her two children to fulfil her destiny as Patrick's beautiful, devoted wife and muse.
Thirty-five years later, Sara's death leaves Patrick alone in their crumbling house in Cornwall, with his whisky, his writer's block and his undimmed rage against the world. But bereavement is no respecter of life's estrangements, and Sara's children, Louise and Nigel, are now adults, with memories, questions and agendas of their own. What was their mother really like? Why did she leave them? What has she left them? And how can Patrick carry on without the love of his life?
Getting Colder is a painfully funny and perceptive novel about family, love, and how sometimes the harder you look, the less you find.
Reviews / Votes
The brilliant What They Do in the Dark was always going to be a hard act to follow, but Getting Colder has once again proved that Coe's a fearless writer, not afraid to linger in the murky, messy corners of her characters' lives * Independent * Ferociously funny . . . rings all too painfully true * Daily Mail * An acutely observed family drama . . . darkly humorous * Sunday Mirror * An uncomfortable but brilliantly acute reading of grief, self-interest and the persistence of old wounds * Financial Times * A savage family saga with lots to say about England today * Metro * Blackly comic . . . crisply plotted and filled with pleasurably sharp observations * Guardian * Dysfunctional family drama at its most satisfying: think Death at a Funeral meets Anne Enright's The Green Road with a dash of David Nicholls' dry wit * Bustle * In this stylish second novel, erotic love trumps the maternal kind - but was it worth it?... blackly comic... crisply plotted and filled with pleasurably sharp observations -- Susanna Rustin * Guardian * Brims over with trenchant observation, emotional truth and bitter wit * Mail on Sunday * a darkly funny exploration of family * Elle * A sharp tale * Good Housekeeping *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Little, Brown Book Group
Dimensions
Height: 223 mm
Width: 146 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
398 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-349-00509-6 (9780349005096)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Amanda Coe is the acclaimed screenwriter and author who in 2013 won a BAFTA for the BBC Four adaptation of John Braine's Room at the Top, starring Maxine Peake. Her other credits include Life in Squares, Margot, As If and the recent BBC One adaptation of Apple Tree Yard. Her novels What They Do in the Dark and Getting Colder are published by Virago.