The Private Lives of Pippa Lee

I was slipping off the edge of what I had known the world to be, and floating in dangerous space.

Pippa Lee has everything. She is the wife of a brilliant publisher, the mother of successful twins, adored by her friends. It’s not the life she thought she would have when she was seventeen, but then who could have imagined her transformation—from a world of experimentation with sex and drugs, to buzzing lawnmowers and suburban coffee mornings.

But is this perfect life enough? When her husband—thirty years her senior—plans for their retirement, she finds her old self beginning to rebel, jeopardising everything she has. The Private Lives of Pippa Lee is a story about women and the masks they wear. It is a story about unexpected encounters, affairs and betrayals, and the dangerous security of marriage.

Praise for The Private Lives of Pippa Lee:

‘Miller is a luminous writer…gazing into these multiple private Pippas is like opening a series of Russian dolls, each intricately wrought, self-contained and self-revealing.’

Observer

‘Rebecca Miller is alive to the subterranean tremors of what it is to be human. The Private Lives of Pippa Lee is beautifully written, strangely beguiling and hard to let go of.’

Joanna Murray-Smith

‘There is on every page a glint of verbal beauty like a jewel, and Miller’s characters are so keenly observed as to be almost painful to read about. The novel’s wit and glamour make it one of the best debuts of the year so far.’

Literary Review