Coupling

Literature & Fiction

Wendy Perriam

Contemporary

Flamingo

The Stillness the Dancing

Purple is the colour of violence, passion, penance and panache; the symbolic shade of kings and emperors, of cardinals and popes. It is also the punch-drunk colour of Wendy Perriam's extraordinary new novel which combines outrageous sex with radiant religion, redeems sin with resurrection and capsizes comedy with shock.Thea Morton, the crazed yet childlike heroine, seeks her absent father in every man she meets. Having rejected the kindly, bookish Adrian with his stifling economies and pedantic word-power, she taunts and worships Leo - darkly violent and disturbingly erotic - who lands her in hospital with broken teeth and bloody mouth. Disillusioned with mortal men, she turns to priest and God, seeking to seduce the one and consume the other.In her quest for God and father, Thea travels to the Marian town of Lourdes, that hopeless, hoping shrine of the Catholic church, where, in seeking a miracle she is granted instead a mission so shocking and stupendous, it changes the whole tenor of her life. St Bernadette herself becomes a character in a novel which adds the supernatural to an already powerful range of themes.Thea crumbles, along with the Marian shrine. Returning from Lourdes already shocked and chastened, she finds her world at home disintegrating, and her last spiritual refuge becomes a violent sexual nightmare.After Purple is a tale of sex, violence and religion, with a strong dose of comedy to wash it down. But the deeper levels and underlying symbolism give Wendy Perriam's always fertile imagination a new force and power.'An extravagant big dipper of a book . . . displaying a boldness, and exuberance and sharpness of eye . . . not for the weak of stomach.' The Times

After Purple

Penguin??Books

HARPER/COLLINS

Broken Places

Robert Hale Company

Who hasn't winced as some phone-pest embarks on a maddeningly public conversation? But, in Perriam's title-story, the timidly conformist Stephen does rather more than wince. Overcoming a lifetime of restraint, he leaps to his feet on a crowded commuter-train and throttles the offender. Or does he? The hair's-breadth line between reality and flights of fancy is a feature of these stories - as in much of Perriam's work - the power of the imagination providing a highly effective antidote to grief, loss or frustration. Whether it's Carole, the office dogsbody, finding self-esteem and status through her congress with an Archangel, or Connie, an octogenarian spinster, reliving her aborted wedding day by passionately kissing the visiting plumber, Perriam's characters transform their lives in unexpected ways. Yet, amidst such shocks and surprises are quieter moments of grace: true heavenly grace descending on an atheist in Westminster Cathedral; grace granted to a grieving daughter at a distinctly offbeat funeral; grace surprising an eighteen-year-old, who, after years of rebellion against her parents, is forced to recognize the blessings and securities of home. "I'm on the train!" brilliantly chronicles the dramas and dilemmas inherent in our human condition, in another outstanding collection from one of Britain's leading short-story writers.

I'm on the Train. Wendy Perriam

Cuckoo

Joseph

Back-In-Print Books Ltd

Born of Woman

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Books by Wendy Perriam