The Essence Of The Thing
Madeleine St JohnMadeleine St John’s novel about the shockingly abrupt end to a relationship skillfully treads a fine line between humour and pathos. "Brisk, sophisticated and artful" (New York Times Book Review).
Nicola’s problems begin when she is told by her partner, Jonathan, that they should part. She goes out to the off-licence and returns to find a stranger in her living room. The stranger looks and talks like Jonathan, but Jonathan had always been predictable. Where was the man she loved?
"Using spare prose, sparkling dialogue and painfully true observations on family life, St John creates a winning combination of humour and pathos." - Publishers Weekly
Madeleine St John graduated from Sydney University and was the author of four novels. The first, The Women in Black, is a comedy of manners set in a department store in her native Sydney during the 1950s. In 2018 the book was republished as Ladies in Black. Her other three are a kind of trilogy based in London’s Notting Hill, where she lived.