DownloadThe Portobello Bookshop Gift Guide 2024

Is There Anything You Want?

Margaret Forster author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Vintage Publishing

Published:2nd Feb '06

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Is There Anything You Want? cover

A characteristically compelling, clear-eyed, humane and heartbreaking novel about a taboo subject - and about what it feels like to be a survivor...

What do Mrs H., Rachel, Edwina, Ida, Sarah, Dot, Chrissie have in common? This enthralling novel follows the ripples that go out into ordinary lives that have been changed by a shared experience, all connected by the same hospital clinic in a small Northern town.

What do Mrs H., Rachel, Edwina, Ida, Sarah, Dot, Chrissie have in common? They're all women, but they're fat, thin, old, young, married or single - and appear as diverse as human nature can be. But they are all survivors. This enthralling novel follows the ripples that go out into ordinary lives that have been changed by a shared experience, all connected by the same hospital clinic in a small Northern town.

This is a novel about what it means to live in the shadow of disease, and with scars, whether mental or physical. From the marvellous ambivalence of the title question, it leaves us with a whole lot more to consider about life and its infinite variety.

Few authors share Margaret Forster's extraordinary ability to transform the ordinary day-to-day activities of unremarkable people into compelling fiction... Written with brilliant and exquisite sensitivity * Daily Mail *
Written with enormous sensitivity and compassion * Red *
The kind of novel into which you plunge with satisfaction * Sunday Times *
Accomplished...moving * Times Literary Supplement *
Written with insight, wit and tremendous style * Spectator *

ISBN: 9780099472131

Dimensions: 198mm x 129mm x 16mm

Weight: 181g

256 pages