The Good Plain Cook
Published on 3. July 2008
Book
Paperback/Softback
336 pages
978-1-84668-665-8 (ISBN)
Description
It's summer 1936, and the world is on the cusp of change, but there's little sign of this in rural Sussex. So when local girl Kitty Allen answers an advert looking for 'a good plain cook', she has no idea what she's in for. For starters, her employer is an American called Ellen Steinberg who believes in calling the staff by their first names and sunbathing in the nude. Then there's Ellen's eleven-year-old daughter, Geenie, a bright, unhappy little thing, and Mrs Steinberg's gentleman friend, Mr Crane, who's said to be a poet - even though he doesn't have a beard and doesn't seem to write much poetry either. Rich bohemians imagining themselves as communists, Steinberg and Crane see themselves as champions of 'the people' - not that they know the first thing about how the people actually live.
Kitty is in no place to criticise - after all she claimed to be a good plain cook, despite hardly knowing how to boil an egg. Utterly out of her depth, she is relieved to have the gardener, Arthur, to talk to. Otherwise she'd never last a summer in this madhouse. Ellen Steinberg wants life to run as smoothly as the love story she imagines her lover George Crane to be writing. But as Kitty arrives, the dream is on the edge of falling apart.
Kitty is in no place to criticise - after all she claimed to be a good plain cook, despite hardly knowing how to boil an egg. Utterly out of her depth, she is relieved to have the gardener, Arthur, to talk to. Otherwise she'd never last a summer in this madhouse. Ellen Steinberg wants life to run as smoothly as the love story she imagines her lover George Crane to be writing. But as Kitty arrives, the dream is on the edge of falling apart.
Reviews / Votes
Wonderfully drawn * Metro * Her writing demonstrates an acute awareness of gathering tension... Roberts looks set to be one of the must-read novelists of this summer * Metro * Slyly humorous * Sainsbury's * Simmering and sensual * Bella * Funny, thought-provoking and very readable * The Gloss * Roberts judiciously balances Ellen's delicious outre flamboyance with a beautifully observed portrait of her tolerant, bemused cook.Roberts has said it was her intention to "put the below-stairs girl centre stage". She has succeeded admirably -- Eithne Farry * Daily Mail * Delicious... Gorgeously written, full of teasing observations about love, class and cookery -- Kate Saunders * The Times * Vividly drawn and affecting... fine touches of subtlety and humour -- Sophie Davies * Financial Times * Charming * Image Magazine * A subtly witty study of class tensions and general human folly... Roberts writes an understated, suggestive prose that achieves maximum comic impact with deceptively slight materials, and the book's brisk dialogue ensures a fast pace in spite of the languid summer setting...One of the novel's greatest strengths is the way in which the surface comedy is underpinned by a darker narrative seam...The Good Plain Cook succeeds so well not least because it manages to keep its eye firmly, to the end, on the social reality it spoofs -- Elizabeth Lowry * Guardian * Arresting... [an] evocative novel of desires and disappointments. -- Ruth Atkins * Booksellers' Choice * One of this summer's purest pleasures... Bethan Roberts is a clever, confident young writer who enjoys herself hugely, producing a perfectly proportioned story of love, inadequate cooking, cultural confusion and complex characters in domestic difficulties -- Iain Finlayson * Saga * A marvellously told little tale * Sunday Business Post * Beguilingly comic... Effortlessly funny * Sunday Tribune * Meditative, sensual and largely restrained * New Statesman * An evocative literary tome * Scarlet * A beautifully written tale that drew me in immediately... Illuminating and moving, this is meticulously crafted storytelling from a very gifted new writer -- Linda Leatherbarrow * NewBooksMag * Excellent... Has plenty to say about sex and class and say it with subtle wit and concision -- John O'Connell * Time Out Books of the Year *More details
Edition
Main
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Profile Books Ltd
Product notice
Paperback (UK-trade)
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 135 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
406 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-84668-665-8 (9781846686658)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
New editions
Bethan Roberts
The Good Plain Cook
Book
06/2009
Serpent's Tail
€29.91
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Person
Bethan Roberts was born in Oxford and brought up in nearby Abingdon. She has MAs from Sussex and Chichester universities and teaches creative writing at Chichester and for the Open University. Roberts was awarded a Jerwood/Arvon Young Writers' Prize for The Pools.