When Penguin published Melissa Bank's debut The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing in 1999, it was an immediate bestseller and was garlanded with praise by critics for its unique, honest and appealing voice. In this piece, Jane tells us about her relationship with a man who will never use her name.

The novel started on flora (dark woods, tangled thickets, choking vines) and went to fauna-if bugs counted as fauna. Bugs, bugs, bugs-too small to see or as big as birds, swarms and loners, biting, stinging and going up your nose. The prose was dense and poetic; it was like reading illegible handwriting, and after a few pages my eyes were just going left to right, word to word, not reading at all. So, when the phone rang, I answered on ring one.

Archie said, "It's me," though we'd been broken up for almost two years. "What's the matter?"

I was too surprised to answer. Then, I started crying and couldn't stop.

Archie hated to hear anyone cry-not just because it hurt him or anything like that, he just hated crying. I could tell he was calling from a pay phone and knew that he was probably out to dinner with Mickey and his entourage, but he didn't say. He was silent, waiting for me to talk.

Finally, I got out: "My Dad has leukaemia."

All he said was, "Oh, honey," but in it I heard everything I needed to. He told me to blow my nose and come over for dinner the next night.

Archie answered the door, wearing the black cashmere sweater I'd given him as a Christmas present. "Hello, dear," he said. He sort of patted my shoulder.

Behind him I saw peonies on the dining-room table. They were white and edged with magenta, still closed into little fists. "Oh," I said. "My favourite."
He said, "Yes, I know," and his eyes said, You're not yourself.

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