Claudette wants to be a moral warrior seeking enlightenment but finds it
hard to resist the convenience of being a kept woman. Lorna tries to
salvage her pride by fabricating a romantic past. Marcie copes with her
husband's rejection by fantasising about a man she hardly knows. The
women in Kim Robinson-Walcott's lightly linked stories want more,
deserve better and know what they should do, and yet . . . Sometimes
we're our own worst enemies, and delusion can feel like the only safe
path through uncertainty.
Over the course of thirty years, these women reckon with the illusions,
insecurities and unfulfilled desires that have shaped their lives, and
all the while the question lingers: Can we transcend our own limitations?
"The women in this book are often left unsatisfied but you the reader
will never be. Not with a gifted storyteller like Kim Robinson-Walcott
laying bare the workings of the heart. The pace is quick and the
language spare as she forces us to witness women teetering on the edge:
Will heart rule head, or vice versa? The terrain of these stories is not
unfamiliar for we all have all been there in one form or another, but
never have we been asked to examine our own delusions with such clarity,
wit and sometimes humour, as through the conversations of these 10
delusionary others."
- Olive Senior, author of Paradise Once