The Group

Description

'A very funny and brilliant book. Feigel does a thorough and virtuosic job of describing the dilemmas of contemporary middle-class women' Rachel Cusk Lara Feigel's first novel, The Group, is a fiercely intelligent, revealing novel about a group of female friends turning forty. Who has children and who doesn't? Whose marriages are working, whose aren't, and who has embarked on completely different models of sexuality and relationships? Who has managed to fulfil their promise, whose life has foundered and what do they think about it, either way? The Group is an engrossing portrait of contemporary female life and friendship, and a thrillingly intimate and acute take on female character in an age that may or may not have been changed by feminism in its different strands.

A writer, critic and cultural historian teaching in the English department at King's College London, Lara Feigel is the author of four books including The Love-Charm of Bombs, The Bitter Taste of Victory and, most recently, Free Woman, a book where Lara examines her own life alongside Doris Lessing's to explore what freedom (sexual, psychological, political) might be and whether it's attainable or desirable. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, writes regularly for the Guardian and lives in Kensal Rise, London, with her two children. The Group is her first novel.

A very funny and brilliant book. Feigel does a thorough and virtuosic job of describing the dilemmas of contemporary middle-class women - Rachel Cusk