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The Pumpkin Eater

The Pumpkin Eater

Summary

'Peter, Peter, Pumpkin eater
Had a wife and couldn't keep her...'

In this extraordinary, semi-autobiographical novel, Penelope Mortimer depicts a married woman's breakdown in 1960s London. With three husbands in her past, one in her present and a numberless army of children, Mrs Armitage is astonished to find herself collapsing one day in Harrods. Strange, unsettling and shot through with black comedy, this is a moving account of one woman's realisation that marriage and family life may not, after all, offer all the answers to the problems of living.

Reviews

  • Beautiful ... almost every woman I can think of will want to read this book
    Edna O'Brien

About the author

Penelope Mortimer

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