A Notable Woman

Delightful . . . an extraordinary woman with a dry, wicked sense of humour and such a longing for love and recognition. I inhaled the 700 pages and still wanted more * * Red * *
The most moving and important book I read this year by a mile: funny, tender and gripping -- RACHEL COOKE * * New Statesman * *
It's not only that Jean is a good writer: observant, funny and rather lyrical. Nor is it that she is so honest . . . Rather, it's that her journals, unfettered and intimate, offer up a whole life * * Observer * *
The sort of reading that will have you grip the arm of your chair in joy -- ALEXANDRA HEMINSLEY * * The Debrief * *
Spend Christmas with Jean Lucey Pratt, the siren of Slough: you will not regret or forget it . . . wholly absorbing and deeply entertaining -- HILARY MANTEL * * New Statesman * *
One of my favourite books of the year . . . the little details are fascinating and the overall portrait of one woman's life in the twentieth century is a must read. I can't recommend this highly enough -- CATHY RENTZENBRINK * * Stylist * *
What a find! Jean's voice sings across the decades, fresh, vivid and desperate for love - a woman with so much to offer, who kicks against the stuffy society in which she finds herself. I grew to love her sharp observation, her vulnerability and her passion -- DEBORAH MOGGACH
A Notable Woman shows us, in close up, how extraordinary the business of an 'ordinary' life can be - how much complexity and feeling and humour it can contain * * Guardian * *
Miss Pratt hoped for an audience, which she will now find, even in the most intimate act of documenting her private life. Her entries read novelistically at times. There is beauty and humour and a fantastic, page-turning narrative, even as a teenager, when, Adrian Mole-like, she writes about her girl-crushes and first kiss. Too often we dismiss the value of ordinary life. Miss Pratt reminds us that it makes for its own kind of literature * * Independent * *
Immensely poignant . . . On the face of it, Pratt's life appears unexceptional. Yet her diaries are utterly enthralling: intimate, occasionally barbed, frequently funny and filled with her hopes and dreams, friendships and love affairs, as well as her observations on Britain's rapidly changing society in the 20th century. It is a life laid bare in all its passion and anger, love and longing, sadness and acceptance. Pratt herself wrote: "Ordinary living isn't humdrum...there is so much pleasure to be had from apparently trivial things." It's a sentiment that could encapsulate this entire extraordinary project * * The Sunday Times * *