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Give Me Your Answer, Do
Paperback
General FictionLiterary Fiction
Publisher: Eigomanga
Published: Sep 27 2022
Pages: 210
Weight: 0.51
Height: 0.53 Width: 5.83 Depth: 8.27
Language: English
Peter Marchant's only novel, Give Me Your Answer, Do, originally published in London in 1960 by Michael Joseph, Ltd. and out of print ever since, was described on The Neglected Books Page website as comfortably nonconformist. For a synopsis, here's an excerpt from the April 14, 1960 review of the book in The Daily Telegraph (London):
A woman secretary [Margaret Finlay], who bicycles every day from Ebury Street to Fenchurch Street and back, has from childhood (unhappy-parents divorced) indulged in conversations with an imaginary pony called Bradshaw. Older and socially superior to the cockney girl typists at the office, she has held herself aloof from them, but feeling out of it when they discuss their boyfriends or forthcoming marriages she is goaded into announcing that she herself is engaged-to Bradshaw. She keeps up the deception when she is befriended and later desired by a middle-aged insurance clerk.
Quoting The Neglected Books Page again: We know, of course, that a collision between Margaret's fantasy world and her real world is inevitable, but the tension derives from our uncertainty over just how disastrous that crash will be. I'll just say that Peter Marchant would have had Hollywood rom-com producers knocking on his door if he'd published this book in the 1990s instead of 1960. His ending is suspenseful, sappy, and satisfying in equal measure.
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