Such Visitors

by Angela Huth

Overview

The characters in Angela Huth's marvellous collection of stories are all winners or losers in the game of love: from the two friends competing in a gruelling cross-country marathon for the man they both wish to marry, to the lonely Cheltenham widow abandoning all decorum after too many Irish Coffees; from a seaside donkey owner giving away his favourite animal for the sake of a pair of sad grey eyes, to the husband taking up secret dancing lessons to please his dance-mad wife.

A shrewd observer of human foibles with a fine sense of the comic and absurd, Angela Huth has written a blissfully entertaining, poignant and funny book of stories, which explore the nature and difficulties of love.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781448200290
Publisher:	Bloomsbury USA
Publication date:	01/31/2013
Pages:	244
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.51(d)

About the Author

Huth is the daughter of the actor Harold Huth. She left school at age 16 in order to paint and to study art in both France and Italy. At 18 she travelled, mostly alone, across the United States before returning to England to work on a variety of newspapers and magazines. She married journalist and travel writer Quentin Crewe and soon became known most for her writing, having written three collections of short stories and eleven novels. She also writes plays for radio, television and stage, and is a well-known freelance journalist, critic and broadcaster. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Editorial Reviews

These 13 stories by a British writer might be better sandwiched between recipes on the glossy pages of commercial magazines. Coy, often featuring tasteful couples caught in tasteful marital crises, they lack artistic vision. In ``Balloons,'' a character announces plans to leave his startled wife: ``But didn't it ever occur to you that things hadn't been well, how shall I put it, quite tickety-boo for some years?'' The husband of ``Sudden Dancer'' secretly takes dancing lessons in order to surprise his petulant spouse, who tardily realizes that not even proficiency in the Charleston will gratify her: `` `Turns out, though, it isn't just the dancing that counts. Not just the dancing,' she sighed.'' The longest entry, ``Ladies' Race,'' is no subtler: two lifelong friends are desperately enamored of the same man, who, unable to choose between them, orders them to compete for his hand by running a grueling race that proves not only fateful but fatal. The ironies throughout are far too heavy to buoy these banal tales. (June)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly