First published 2011
Tory Pace manages wartime life with her children evacuated and husband Donald imprisoned. She lives with her difficult mother and works at a gelatin factory supporting the war effort. Her routine existence shatters when Donald sends an outrageous demand from his prisoner of war camp. He wants her to write him a sexually explicit letter. Tory recoils at first, convinced the Nazis have corrupted her husband into something monstrous. But marital obligation slowly overtakes her revulsion. She embarks on a peculiar education, visiting libraries and bookshops across South-East London to learn the vocabulary of physical intimacy. Her innocent research spirals into unexpected and perilous territory. The story begins with accidental cannibalism and ventures into schemes involving protein pills to solve world hunger. Woodward follows Tory's journey across the Continent while anchoring the narrative in family bonds and human relationships. This darkly comic novel examines how people sustain and devour each other during crisis.
Genres: literary-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, forced-proximity
Setting: South-East London
Period: Wartime
353 pages · Kindle Edition · Arcade
Content warnings: explicit-sexual-content, war