Human Croquet

by Atkinson, Kate | Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)
Published 01/03/1998 by Transworld Publishers Ltd (Black Swan) in the United Kingdom
Paperback | 448 pages
197 x 127 x 30mm | 308g

The brilliant and profound second novel from the three-times Costa prizewinner and number one bestseller Kate Atkinson.

'Vivid, richly imaginative, hilarious and frightening by turns' ObserverOnce it had been the great forest of Lythe. And here, in the beginning, lived the Fairfaxes, grandly, at Fairfax Manor.

But over the centuries the forest had been destroyed, replaced by Streets of Trees. The Fairfaxes have dwindled too; now they live in 'Arden' at the end of Hawthorne Close and are hardly a family at all.

But Isobel Fairfax, who drops into pockets of time and out again, knows about the past. She is sixteen and waiting for the return of her mother - the thin, dangerous Eliza with her scent of nicotine, Arpège and sex, whose disappearance is part of the mystery that still remains at the heart of the forest.