The Essence of the Thing

Haunting and hilarious: a novel about the things women do to hold onto love, and about what men do to escape it.

Nicola should never have stepped out to buy that pack of cigarettes because the man she discovers in her living room when she returns is not the adorable, straightforward, devoted Jonathan with whom she has been sharing her life and flat for the past six weeks. That Jonathan would never have simply, unilaterally, decided that she should, as he abruptly put it, ‘move out.’

So a shocked, grief-stricken Nicola packs her bags and sets out bravely on the bumpy course that will take her fro the hellish end of an affair to the essence of the thing. So too does the brilliant Madeleine St John, whose vision is both comic and tender, take us into the changing nature of the human heart.

‘My mother sent you this,’ he said. ‘Oh?’ ‘I believe it’s some marmalade,’ he said ‘From the latest batch. ‘How kind,’ said Nicola, opening the bag. ‘You haven’t told them, then?’ ‘Told them what?’ ‘That we’re no longer in a shared marmalade situation…’

Praise for The Essence of the Thing:

‘A brisk, sophisticated and artful narrative.’

New York Time Book Review

‘St John’s intelligence transforms a simple story into a much karger commentary on love and loss.’

Mademoiselle

‘The Essence of the Thing grabs the reader’s sympathy and attention from the starting first pages and doesn’t let go.’

Newsday

‘Using spare prose, sparkling dialogue and painfully true observations on family life, St. John creates a winning combination of humour and pathos.’

Publishers Weekly