Gert Hardcastle is thirty-something and unlucky in love. As the novel opens, she thinks she has found The One - Eva, who works in the cafeteria of the northern museum where Gert catalogues the Egyptian artefacts.
As Gert embarks on her hilarious and poignant pursuit of Eva, she looks back on her eccentric home-countries childhood - the big house with the Far Nursery, the attic haunted by the ghost of a Victorian poet, her strange twin Frank with whom she communicates telepathically, her father George, who regularly disappears off to his African crocodile farm and her vain and totally impractical mother Jean. Is Gert destined to remain the scaffolding for those around her, or will she find her saviour?
In this classic tale of the search for love and self-knowledge, Julia Darling combines the real with the surreal. Writing with wit, insight and imagination she has found a fresh, delightful and highly accessible voice.
