The palm house / Gwendoline Riley.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Riley, Gwendoline, 1979- Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Friendship--Fiction.

Friendship.

Life change events--Fiction.

Life change events.

Families--Fiction.

Families.

Genre:

Psychological fiction.

Novels.

Fiction

Novels

Psychological fiction

Physical Description:

211 pages ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : The New York Review of Books, [2026]

Summary:

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2026 BOOKER PRIZE From the author of My Phantoms and First Love, a droll and quietly evocative novel about work, friendship, family, and the path--so often muddled--toward finding one's place in life. Laura Miller and Edmund Putnam have been friends for a long time. Theirs is a happy meeting of minds, with long evenings spent huddled in an ancient pub by the Thames, where they share office gossip, reflect on their teenage passions, and lament the state of the world. Recently, though, Putnam has been harder to reach: He has lost his father, and the magazine to which he has dedicated his life has been hijacked by an insufferable new editor, Simon "Shove" Halfpenny. Laura has her own problems: Living in London, a beautiful but also indifferent city, with a prickly mother to manage and a tricky past to contemplate, she finds that day-to-day life presents its difficulties. And as Putnam starts to sink into despondency, she must try to bring him back. A novel of enduring friendships and small mercies, The Palm House offers us Gwendoline Riley's trademark keen observation and wit, and leaves us with a sense of possibility.

"Laura's long friendship with Edmund Putnam is tested when he resigns from Sequence magazine--one of the few places he has ever felt he belonged. Putnam repines. His sweet-natured father has recently died, which has not improved his mood. Meanwhile Laura's relentlessly "outward-facing" mother is still at large and toting a new boyfriend as if he were a marotte. Laura, too, needs a new job, and a place to live that doesn't have centipedes in the kitchen. Gwendoline Riley's seventh novel explores acceptance and affinity. Young people don't drink anymore but Laura and Putnam are no longer young. Over wine and crisps the pair reflect on what has brought them to where they are. There are memories of childhood package holidays, teenage friendships and obsessions, peculiar love affairs, bad parties. Life is fleeting. Sequence magazine means something, but what? Might Putnam plot a return?"-- Provided by publisher.

Local Notes:

Athenaeum copy: Green fund bookplate.

Other Format:

Online version Riley, Gwendoline Palm house

ISBN:

9798896230526

OCLC:

1528543209