24 for 3
Jennie Walker
24 for 3
Do cricketers blush? What happens if the ball hits a seagull? Can a woman have a lover and a husband and still keep her family together? Can the rules be changed? Friday: as a Test match between England and India begins, a woman's attention is torn between a husband who is all too keen to explain the rules, a lover who prefers mystery, and a sixteen-year-old son who hasn't come home. By Tuesday night the match will have been won or lost. Or perhaps it will have reached a draw in which only pride may be salvaged.
4.6 out of 5 based on 4 reviews
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Omniscore:
|
| Classification |
Fiction |
| Genre |
General Fiction |
| Format |
Hardback |
| Pages |
144 |
| RRP |
£9.99 |
| Date of Publication |
August 2008 |
| ISBN |
978-0747597926 |
| Publisher |
Bloomsbury |
| |
Do cricketers blush? What happens if the ball hits a seagull? Can a woman have a lover and a husband and still keep her family together? Can the rules be changed? Friday: as a Test match between England and India begins, a woman's attention is torn between a husband who is all too keen to explain the rules, a lover who prefers mystery, and a sixteen-year-old son who hasn't come home. By Tuesday night the match will have been won or lost. Or perhaps it will have reached a draw in which only pride may be salvaged.
Winner of the McKitterick Prize for a first novel by an author over 40. Jennie Walker is a pen-name of Charles Boyle.
Reviews
The Guardian
Nicholas Lezard
“This is a little marvel of a novella. It's funny, clever, illuminating, deeply kind-hearted, and doesn't outstay its welcome. It's not self-indulgent: things happen in it, surprising things, like in an old-fashioned novel, yet it's perfectly contemporary; and every word has been chosen with subtle care. It is, on its own terms, just right. I wonder if it's too late for it to go on the Orange prize shortlist.”
22/12/2007
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The Spectator
John De Falbe
“Although cricket twines through the book, it doesn’t matter if you know nothing and care still less about it... Read 24 for 3. Give it to smart friends, dull ones, brainy and dense ones; leave it on the train instead of a newspaper. I hope it outsells Alan Bennett’s delightful squib, The Uncommon Reader, because it achieves the hardest thing in fiction: joy from difficulty, while maintaining a sense of unforced truth.”
06/08/2008
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The Daily Telegraph
Lionel Shriver
“[A] lovely little novel... 24 for 3 is written with a beguiling simplicity, and the small wisdoms it offers up are readily accessible to readers (like this one) who have never been able to make head or tail of cricket. Its clarity and musing tone perfectly suit a rainy afternoon.”
24/08/2008
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The Times
Kate Saunders
“Our heroine asks many searching questions about cricket and life and it is all rather charming. Some may find it a little creepy that Jennie Walker is the pen-name of Charles Boyle, 57 - but the fictional cross-dressing illuminates some unexpected places.”
05/09/2008
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