An Accommodating Spouse

(Paperback)

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Description

'A fantastic book in all senses of that word' Sydney Morning Herald The Professor is married to Hazel, a diligent and generous (but rather plain) woman. She is so close to her twin, Chloe, that both women live under one roof with the Professor. Back from an overseas trip come their daughters - triplets - ready to celebrate their twenty-first birthday. Family life in the otherwise peaceful house swells to a chaotic crescendo on the evening of the party, as the Professor feels the tender sting of his wife's accommodating ways. This is vintage Jolley, filled with quiet wit and keen observations of human relationships and their frailties.

Author Bio

Elizabeth Jolley was one of Australia's most celebrated writers, with a formidable international reputation. She was recognised in Australia with an AO for services to literature and was awarded Honorary Doctorates from Curtin University (1986); Macquarie (1995), Queensland (1997) and The University of New South Wales (2000). Born in England in 1923, she was brought up in a strict, German-speaking household and attended a Quaker boarding school. She became a nurse, married Leonard Jolley and with three children moved to Western Australia in 1959. In 1974 she started teaching creative writing at Fremantle Arts Centre. Although she wrote all her life, it was not until she was in her fifties that her books started to receive the recognition they deserved. She won The Age Book of the Year Award on three separate occasions (for Mr Scobie's Riddle, My Father's Moon and The Georges' Wife) and she won the Miles Franklin Award for The Well, as well as many other awards. Her last two novels published by Penguin were An Accommodating Spouse (1999) and An Innocent Gentleman (2001). Her non-fiction collection, Learning to Dance was published in 2006. Elizabeth Jolley died in 2007.