When We Were Bad

(Paperback, Unabridged edition)

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Description

Claudia Rubin is in her heyday. Wife, mother, rabbi and sometime moral voice of the nation, it is she whom everyone wants to be with at her older son's glorious February wedding. Until Leo becomes a bolter and the heyday of the Rubin family begins to unravel... His calm, married, more mature sister, Frances, tries to hold the centre together but the stresses, for Frances, force her to re-examine her own middle way and lead to a decision as shocking in its way as Leo's has been. Meanwhile, Claudia's husband Norman has, uncharacteristically, a secret to hide - a secret whose imminent unveiling he can do nothing about... A warm, poignant and true portrayal of a London family in crisis, in love, in denial and - ultimately - in luck.

Reviews

As intelligent as it is funny. A beautifully observed literary comedy as well as a painfully accurate description of one big old family mess. A joy -- Viv Groskop * The Observer *
Fast-paced and engaging. Brilliant, touching and true -- Naomi Alderman, Women's Prize-winning author of The Power
A dazzling portrait of a family in crisis * The Guardian *
A completely brilliant book. Breathtakingly good -- Barbara Trepido, bestselling author of Brother of the More Famous Jack
Assured, inventive and entertaining . . . Brilliantly climactic . . . Intelligent and witty. The Rubin family may be a singular one but the delights and the difficulties its members have with sex and spirituality, food and domesticity, expectation and achievement, will have a universal appeal * The Sunday Telegraph *
Funny and emotionally true, this is a comedy with the warmest of hearts and the most deliciously subversive of agendas * Marie Claire *
Charlotte Mendelsons When We Were Bad will take its place among classic accounts of tribal misadventure with the same apparent effortlessness that proves so pleasurable in her writing. Rarely can readers of contemporary fiction feel themselves to be in such safe hands -- Hannah Betts * The Times *
Written with tremendous authority, insight, humour and even wisdom . . . Convincing and moving . . . Funny, absorbing and certain to linger in the imagination * Spectator *
Never has the perfect family cracked and crumbled with such elegance, warmth and humour -- Meg Rosoff, bestselling author of How We Live Now
Rarely has the suffocating hold of family life been so powerfully portrayed as it has here . . . Mendelsons great achievement is to make us care . . . Uncompromising and brave * Daily Mail *
With great delicacy and elliptical prose, Mendelson draws a subtle and compassionate picture of a family as it unravels. A novel about secrets and the damage they cause * Metro *
Compelling . . . A poignant and compassionate novel of a family in crisis as one member after another faces some home truths * Woman & Home *
Secret thoughts and unnameable hangups are teased out in glowing, metaphorical and often very funny prose . . . Mendelson explores the shadows and ghosts haunting a family which appears to outsiders to be a harmonious, messy, intellectual ideal * Times Literary Supplement *
Brilliant . . . highly entertaining -- Matthew Reisz * Independent *
Quite superlative * Scotsman *
Immensely funny and affecting . . . A novel that wittily and searingly explores the relationships between parents and their adult children . . . an elegant comedy of longing and survival * LA Times *
Astute, affectionately mocking prose and a wicked but merciful intelligence * Kirkus *
Absolutely spellbinding, so funny, so moving, so totally believable -- Jacqueline Wilson

Author Bio

Charlotte Mendelson was born in 1972 and grew up in Oxford. She was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award in 2004. Charlotte lives in London with her family.