The Fiction Class

Read Susan Breen's posts on the Penguin Blog.

A witty, honest, and hugely entertaining story for anyone who loves books, or has a difficult mother. And, let's face it, that's practically everybody . . .

On paper, Arabella Hicks seems more than qualified to teach her fiction class on the Upper West Side: she's a writer herself; she's passionate about books; she's even named after the heroine in a Georgette Heyer novel.

On the other hand, she's thirty-eight, single, and has been writing the same book for the last seven years. And she has been distracted recently: on the same day that Arabella teaches her class she also visits her mother in a nursing home outside the city. And every time they argue. Arabella wants the fighting to stop, but, as her mother puts it, "Just because we're family, doesn't mean we have to like each other." When her class takes a surprising turn and her lessons start to spill over into her weekly visits, she suddenly finds she might be holding the key to her mother's love and, dare she say it, her own inspiration. After all, as a lifelong lover of books, she knows the power of a good story.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 03/01/2008
ISBN: 9780452289109
Pages: 304
Weight: 0.55lbs
Size: 7.96h x 5.30w x 0.65d

Review Citations: Booklist 09/01/2007 pg. 52
Publishers Weekly 09/10/2007 pg. 36
Library Journal 11/01/2007 pg. 58