Product Description

Coming of age in rural England in the eighties is far from straightforward for Kate Happy, in a hilarious, highly-praised debut novel of family, secrets and dead ancestors in the attic. Gran has been homesick for Coney Island for thirty-eight years, hating her husband but determinedly donning her best pink Chanel suit and high heels to step out into the muck-splattered farmyard. Grandpa is bonkers, an ex-naval Captain who wanders round the house shouting sea-faring commands. Mum's gone AWOL since she ran over Kate's dad in her soft-top Triumph Spitfire. And are those really Dad's ashes in a Hellmann's mayonnaise jar in the attic? Crackling with the darkest of dark humour, brimming with crazy ancestors and closely guarded secrets, HAPPY ACCIDENTS is a wonderful first novel that confirms Tiffany Murray as a rising star of British fiction.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #264490 in Books
• Published on: 2005-08-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 362 pages

Review
'Witty, romantic and irreverent! Inventive, funny and affecting, this is a story that is powerful without being mawkish.' Daily Mail 'Along with her whip-cracking dialogue, it is quirky images that are Murray's forte ! throwing the freewheeeling antics of the Happys into hilarious relief.' The Observer 'Murray manages to counterpoint beautifully the loveless, the perverse and even the wicked with all that is tender and true in human relationships.' Zoe Strimpel, Time Out 'Woody Allen visits Cold Comfort Farm.' Boyd Tonkin, Independent

Independent
'Brimming with secrets and surprises, this deliciously funny novel is a delight.'

Peter Carty, Independent
'Murray has shown she is a writer of singular felicity whose first novel holds out strong promise for the future'

Customer Reviews

More, please.
If you want to laugh, cry, cringe, applaude and marvel at some unique characters, this is for you. Murray has created a anarchic world where dogs are top dog and pink is the new black. The dialogue is stunning and the plot tears along. You must have a serious sense of humnour deficiency if you don't love every page of it. More from Murray, please.

A Brillantly Happy Accident
Wonderfully funny, but with touches of Bruce Chatwin's On The Black Hill. Haven't enjoyed a book so much in a long time, clever yet thoroughly entertaining - the Happy family are very hard to forget. I can't recommend it enough. Brilliant.

Stunning dialogue
This novel sometimes reads like a script, the dialogue really is stunning.

Even though it's written in the first person, the secondary characters all have their specific way of talking: from the mother with her bullet-like words and phrases, and the unforgettable Aunts, Reggie and Rita, one who talks like an old general, the other like an extra in a Neil Simon play.

I'd recommend it on the dialogue alone, but then there's a real novelist at work here, and the picture she paints of this Welsh farm is as real as the mud and rain that soaks it. It's great fun too, with laugh out loud moments. Definitely one to read.