And what of his career? The hero of The Cappuccino Years works at Soho's Hoi Polloi restaurant, rustling up deliberately grubby blue-collar cuisine, from "Heinz tomato soup (with white bread floaters)" to "Boiled cabbage avec Dan Quayle Potatoes." At a certain point, he's spotted by a cable producer and ends up starring in a television show celebrating offal--yes, it's called Offally Good. Yet even Adrian is somewhat perplexed by his culinary gifts:
My mother's family (Norfolk) were practically illiterate, and seemed to live on boiled potatoes with HP sauce, and my father's family (Leicester) viewed books with deep suspicion, unless they had pictures which "broke up the pages." My paternal grandmother, May Mole, was a plain cook, who regarded eating as a gross indulgence. Thank God she died before I became a professional chef. It was her proud boast that she had never eaten in a proper restaurant in her life. She spoke of restaurants as others speak of crack dens.As the above should make clear, Townsend's acerbic (and very English) wit is still much in evidence. Occasionally she'll go to corny lengths for a joke: "I arrived at the Brent Cross shopping centre car-park, to find that my car had been towed away five days ago and was in a police compound somewhere in Purley. A £25 cab ride took me to the Purley gates." True Mole fanatics, however, will forgive Townsend her infrequent excesses. Accessible, amusing, and appealing, The Cappuccino Years reflects an Adrian who has tolerated the growing pains and survived the lost years. Now he's ready to face the only really important question: Is it cheating to use Viagra? --Lucie Naylor]]>
"It's not pretty, it's not subtle, but it's wickedly funny and skewers London's prime-time players."-Columbus Dispatch
Praise for Sue Townsend:
"It's a good thing British subjects are no longer beheaded for treason, or Sue Townsend's head would roll . . . outrageously cutting."-Newsday
"[Townsend] is a national treasure."-The New York Times Book Review
Edward Clare, PM of England, doesn't know the price of a liter of milk. Worse, he's admitted it on national television. The public that ushered him to a landslide election has turned against him.
Edward decides the only way to get closer to the men and women on the street is to travel the country dressed in drag. Leaving his high-powered, ambitious wife to attend to things in his absence, he sets out.
In this comic romp Sue Townsend sends up, roasts, hoists and generally petards the once and future prime ministers as only she can.
Sue Townsend is celebrated as the author of the bestselling
Adrian Mole
series, read by millions, as well as the #1 British bestseller, The Queen and I. She lives in Leicester, England.]]>When Christopher makes the acquaintance of a drug addict and his unfortunate wife and baby, his unresolved feelings for Angela and the child he so desired resurface, setting in motion events that will lead to redemption for all four characters. Ghost Children is an unflinching look at the psychological aftermath of abortion, told with poignancy and a sense of hope.
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