Product Description

Fat and fity, educated only to be a wife and mother, Ruby Constad has reached a point of crisis. Her husband, Leon, lies in a nursing home after a stroke that has left him paralysed; her grown-up children are gone. In her anguish Ruby appeals for help to a half-remembered figure from her colonial Indian girlhood - Sister Benedicta. Gradually the events leading up to Leon's stroke are revealed and a woman emerges whose capacity to love, hope and understand are far greater than she realizes.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #174755 in Books
• Published on: 1999-09-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 176 pages

From the Publisher
'It is a joy to read from beginning to end' Auberon Waugh
'Miss Tremain does something to restore my confidence in the vitality of the English novel...Letter to Sister Benedicta should be seen as a triumph of the human spirit over the afflictions which beset us' Auberon Waugh

Fat and fifty, educated only to be a wife and mother, Ruby Constad has reached a point of crisis. Her husand, Leon, lies in a nursing home after a stroke that has left him paralysed; her grown-up children are gone. In her anguish Ruby appeals for help to a half-remembered figure from her colonial Indian girlhood - Sister Benedicta. Gradually, the events leading up to Leon's stroke are revealed and a woman emerges whose capacity to love, hope and understand are far greater than she realises.

'An original talent clears the hurdle of a second novel with pathos and humour' Guardian

'The fact that Ruby Constad emerges so strong and devoid of self-pity makes her one of the most generous and complete of modern heroines' The Times

About the Author
Rose Tremain lives in North London and Norwich, with the biographer Richard Holmes. Her books have won many prizes including the Whitbread Novel of the Year, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the Prix Femina Etranger, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Angel Literary Award and the Sunday Express Book of the Year. Restoration was shortlisted for the Booker and made into a film; The Colour was shortlisted for the Orange and selected by the Daily Mail Reading Club. Her most recent collection, The Darkness of Wallis Simpson, was shortlisted for both the First National Short story Award and the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. Two of her books (The Colour and The Way I Found Her) are in development as films, and she is currently working on a TV screenplay to star Sir Ian McKellen.