When We Were Bad: the dazzling, Womens Prize-shortlisted novel from the author of The Exhibitionist

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When We Were Bad is a spellbinding, witty and poignant portrayal of a family in crisi, in love, and in denial. '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' - Observer In North London, Claudia Rubin is in her heyday. Wife, mother, rabbi - and sometimes moral voice of the nation - everyone wants to be with her at her son Leo's glorious wedding. That is, until Leo jilts his bride, and the gleaming bubble surrounding the Rubins threatens to burst. Frances - Claudia's calm, mature, married daughter - tries to hold the nucleus of the family together, but the stress forces her to re-examine her own life, leading her to make a decision as shocking as Leo's choice to bolt. And Claudia's husband, Norman, has an uncharacteristic secret. And, whether he likes it or not, he is powerless to stop it coming out . . . 'A comedy with the warmest of hearts and the most deliciously subversive of agendas' - Marie Claire 'Fast-paced and engaging. Brilliant, touching and true' - Naomi Alderman, bestselling author of The Power

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's novels include Daughters of Jerusalem, When We Were Bad, Almost English, and The Exhibitionist. She has won both the Somerset Maugham Award and the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, has been longlisted for the Man Booker, and has been longlisted and shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction. She is also the author of one work of non-fiction, Rhapsody in Green, and is the gardening correspondent for The New Yorker. She lives in London.