Trouble-Makers

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A01=Celia Fremlin
Author_Celia Fremlin
Category=FBA
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eq_fiction
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Product details

  • ISBN 9780571312962
  • Weight: 224g
  • Dimensions: 126 x 198mm
  • Publication Date: 16 Jan 2014
  • Publisher: Faber & Faber
  • Publication City/Country: GB
  • Product Form: Paperback
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The Trouble-Makers (1963) was Celia Fremlin's fourth novel and - as Chris Simmons contends in his new preface to this Faber Finds edition - has a case to be considered among her very best.

Katharine is a suburban housewife, desultorily unemployed, unhappily married, struggling to keep up appearances but consoled to some degree by the even more aggravated woes of her next-door neighbour Mary - until, that is, Katharine is brought to the disturbing realisation that Mary's predicament is in fact substantially worse.

'A cleverly devised story. A chorus of nicely-characterised suburban wives speculate on Mary's troubles. Fremlin builds up the whole thing into a crescendo of horror.' Sunday Times

'One again Fremlin shows how incomparably more chilling is her quiet, semifactual style than some of the hysterical sentimentalities from Over the Water.' Guardian

Celia Fremlin (1914-2009) was born in Kent and spent her childhood in Hertfordshire, before studying at Oxford (whilst working as a charwoman). During World War Two, she served as an air-raid warden before becoming involved with the Mass Observation Project, collaborating on a study of women workers, War Factory. In 1942 she married Elia Goller, moved to Hampstead and had three children. In 1968, their youngest daughter committed suicide aged 19; a month later, her husband also killed himself. In the wake of these tragedies, Fremlin briefly relocated to Geneva. In 1985, she married Leslie Minchin, with whom she lived until his death in 1999. Over four decades, Fremlin wrote sixteen celebrated novels - including the classic summer holiday seaside mystery Uncle Paul (1959) - one book of poetry and three story collections. Her debut The Hours Before Dawn won the Edgar Award in 1960.

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