Only Human

Marjorie Hemming, marriage guidance counsellor, craves concord and harmony the way other people need cigarettes. But cracks are starting to show in the world she's so carefully remade after her early widowhood. Some of her couples refuse to kiss and make up: even Nurse Rose, the TV heroine who looks so like Marjorie, seems about to make a foolhardy blunder. When her adored teenage daughter unexpectedly moves out, this professional expert on human affairs is forced to look at matters a little closer to home.

“'There is more than a hint of the sharply humorous style of Muriel Spark in this pleasantly quirky novel... Boyt paints the unravelling of her heroine's tenuous grip on reality with economical but expressive brush strokes - and delivers more than a few deliciously comic moments along the way' The Sunday Times 8/5/05”

'Addictive... In this energising read, Boyt brilliantly captures the linguistic gymnastics of the therapy room. In Marjorie, she has created an Anne Tyler character in the English mould.' Independent 18/03/2005 Independent
'Quirky, poignant and often painfully funny' Sunday Express, 5/6/05 Sunday Express
The Sunday Times 8/5/05
'Elegantly simple and consistently unpretentious...Only Human is a delicate and moving portrait of someone full of faith, trying, heroically, to do her best.' Daily Telegraph 19/03/2005 Daily Telegraph (Isobel Shirlaw)
'Anyone suspicious of counselling will delight in Susie Boyt's portrayal of the emotional collapse of a marriage guidance councellor.' Guardian 19/03/2005 Guardian (Isabel Montgomery)

Susie Boyt, daughter of the painter, Lucian Freud, was born in London in 1969. She is the author of THE NORMAL MAN, which was read on Radio 4's Woman's Hour, THE CHARACTERS OF LOVE, and (in Headline) THE LAST HOPE OF GIRLS, which was shortlisted for the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in 2002. ONLY HUMAN was shortlisted for the MIND Book of the Year Award 2005. Susie Boyt lives in Regents Park.

Marjorie Hemming, marriage guidance counsellor, craves concord and harmony the way other people need cigarettes. But cracks are starting to show in the world she's so carefully remade after her early widowhood. Some of her couples refuse to kiss and make up: even Nurse Rose, the TV heroine who looks so like Marjorie, seems about to make a foolhardy blunder. When her adored teenage daughter unexpectedly moves out, this professional expert on human affairs is forced to look at matters a little closer to home.

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