Set In Motion

'An impressive writer...I admire her straightforward style and the intelligence and strength of her heroine' - Ann Tyler. Helene is a woman constantly on the run. A social worker, she spends her days trying to sort out other people's lives. But her need for professional detachment carries through to her private life where she is pursued by a series of needy men - one simply mad and obsessive, another a drug addict whose habit is all-consuming, the third the partner of her best friend who has a cruel, selfish streak. People see in her the sort of person in whom they can confide their secrets and desires but Helene is determined never to give up the option to walk away...

An impressive writer...I admire her straightforward style and the intelligence and strength of her heroine -- Ann Tyler
Valerie Martin is contemporary and extraordinary ... SET IN MOTION is admirably written in clean, unenamelled prose ... this is definitely art -- Margaret Manning BOSTON GLOBE
A rare accomplishment ... a remarkable novel ... rich in perceptive prose ... rich in probing character study CHICAGO TRIBUNE
SET IN MOTION is a striking first novel, remarkable for its honesty ... One of the best things about it is that her main character works, and that her work illumines her and the novel -- Walker Percy
A rare accomplishment ... a remarkable novel ... rich in perceptive prose ... rich in probing character study CHICAGO TRIBUNE

Valerie Martin is the author of two collections of short fiction and six novels, including The Orange Prize winner, Property, Italian Fever, The Great Divorce and Mary Reilly [the Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde story, from the viewpoint of a housemaid, which was filmed with Julia Roberts and John Malkovich. Her most recent book is a non-fiction work about St Francis of Assisi: Salvation: Scenes from the Life of St Francis. She lives in upstate New York.

'An impressive writer...I admire her straightforward style and the intelligence and strength of her heroine' - Ann Tyler. Helene is a woman constantly on the run. A social worker, she spends her days trying to sort out other people's lives. But her need for professional detachment carries through to her private life where she is pursued by a series of needy men - one simply mad and obsessive, another a drug addict whose habit is all-consuming, the third the partner of her best friend who has a cruel, selfish streak. People see in her the sort of person in whom they can confide their secrets and desires but Helene is determined never to give up the option to walk away...

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