About this item
'I absolutely loved it. A delight ...so fresh and clever and subversive' Kate Atkinson 'I completely loved Lillian on Life. What a great voice, what energy and wit ...very original and often extremely funny' Karen Joy Fowler Lillian, a single, well-travelled woman of a certain age, wakes up next to her married lover and looks back at her life. It's not at all the life she expected. Walking the unpaved road between traditional and modern options for women, Lillian has grappled with parental disappointment, society's expectations and the vagaries of love and sex. As a narrator she's bold and witty, and her reflections - from 'On Getting to Sex' to 'On the Importance of Big Pockets' or 'On Leaving in Order to Stay' - reverberate originally and unpredictably.
About the Author
I was born in Los Angeles in 1966 to a British mother and an American father. They met on an airplane in 1963 when she was a Pan Am stewardess and he was coming back from participating in the first American expedition to Mount Everest. We moved every few years, so I don't remember L.A. By the time I was eight I had also lived in St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands, and in London. I lived in coastal Massachusetts until college at Indiana University, where I earned a B.A. in Mandarin and French, having spent my junior year (1985-86) in Beijing. After studying for an M.A. in Chinese Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) , I worked for the U.S. Commerce Department for a year, wondering about joining the Foreign Service. I got married and moved to Japan in 1991 instead. It was in Japan that I started really concentrating on writing. While earning money at various part-time jobs (editor, voice-over talent) , I submitted freelance articles on business, culture and history to a range of magazines and newspapers; I scribbled poetry; and I wrote three novels. Lots of my freelance articles were published, and one poem. Please forget I told you about the novels. After eight years and two babies in Japan, I moved to Singapore. A lot has happened to me here: I got divorced, I developed a successful coaching and training business, I adopted a schnauzer, I managed on my own for a long time, I met the love of my life and I remarried. I've written lots of short stories while living here in Singapore. Lillian on Life is the first novel I wrote while here. More to come.
