Author(s): Gwendoline Riley

Fiction | Marianne's Book Talkers

An electric, compelling, often painfully funny portrait of family relationships, which shows the damage we can do in the course of a life. From the Women's Prize-Shortlisted author of First Love Helen Grant has always been a mystery to her daughter. Twice-divorced, with few friends, her desire to join in is matched only by her need to stand apart. As Bridget looks back over their fractious relationship, she is forced to confront the cruelties inflicted on both sides. My Phantoms is an insightful, compelling and painfully funny account of a family strained to breaking point; a reckoning with the damage we do over the course of a life. 'What a phenomenal ear she has, and how remorselessly funny she is - My Phantoms is unmissably good ' - Kevin Barry, author of Night Boat to Tangier

CONSTANT READER STAFF REVIEW: MARIANNE

My colleagues will attest to the fact that when I was reading this book, I could not stop talking about it – it really stopped me in my tracks! My Phantoms describes the relationship between its narrator and her parents, both difficult and damaged people in their own ways.

This might not be a new topic in the world of literary fiction, but I’ve never encountered a writer able to draw us so closely into the loaded and complex dynamics between parents and their children. Each sentence is masterful, and every line of banal dialogue weighted with a lifetime’s worth of misunderstandings, rejections, and disappointments. It’s so acidic that it should have been a gruelling read, but I gobbled it up in mere hours! A delicious treat for those of us who enjoy a little blood in the water.