Man At the Helm
Nina Stibbe
The very start of Lizzie Vogel's story. From the much-loved author of Love, Nina, discover a wildly comic, brilliantly sharp-eyed novel about one family's fall from grace.
'All hail a book that's funny!' Barbara Trapido
*****
Meet Lizzie Vogel, 9.
Lizzie is concerned about her newly divorced mother; thirty-one years old and trapped in a hostile village in the English countryside with only three young children and a Labrador for company. It isn't that having a husband is good, but in 1970s rural Leicestershire, not having one is bad. The women in the village think Lizzie's mother is after their husbands - and no one will let the children into the Brownies!
Worried about their mother's drinking, her (bad) playwriting and social workers sending them off to the infamous Crescent Home for Children, Lizzie and her sister embark on a misguided campaign to find their mother a new husband.
LIZZIE'S STORY CONTINUES IN PARADISE LODGE AND REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL!
*****
'[A] joyous read, full of wit and charm . . . I am already longing for Nina Stibbe's next book' OBSERVER
'Just the right mixture of childhood innocence and incredulity for the necessary deadpan delivery of Stibbe's particular brand of comedy. Read it and be charmed' INDEPENDENT
'A beguilingly comic blend of naivety and precociousness' SUNDAY TIMES
NINA STIBBE'S NEW NOVEL ONE DAY I SHALL ASTONISH THE WORLD IS AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW
Product Details
About Nina Stibbe
Reviews for Man At the Helm
Observer
A wicked anatomising of a dysfunctional family . . . Buoyantly comic: farcical yet tender, rude with a forgiving sweetness
Spectator
Read it and be charmed. Just the right mixture of childhood innocence and incredulity for the necessary deadpan delivery of Stibbe's particular brand of comedy
Independent
All hail a book that's funny!
Barbara Trapido [A] joyous read, full of wit and charm . . . I am already longing for Nina Stibbe's next book
Express
A beguilingly comic blend of naivety and precociousness
Sunday Times
Within a few pages I was completely caught up in the lives of Lizzie and her family . . . I couldn't have loved it more
Lisa Jewell Fantastic. Comical, moving and brilliantly evocative of British childhood
Glamour
This book is very, very funny. Stibbe has a fine eye for absurdity, and her writing has an unforced charm. [And] there is real darkness here, which makes the humour shimmer all the more
Independent on Sunday
Lizzie's voice is convincingly childlike but also confidently witty . . . What is most moving here - and what makes the book most similar to Love, Nina - is its celebration of the happiness possible within the family. Stibbe's feat is to remain unsentimentally barbed while subtly and triumphantly demonstrating the value of the kind of understated love found within the strangest and least obviously functional families
Telegraph