Personal Velocity

'An excellent book' Guardian 'Compelling' Independent The vibrantly fresh and lustrous stories in Miller's collection explore the multifaceted lives of women in seven arresting portraits. Modern and diverse, these women of different classes and ages struggle with sexuality, fate, motherhood, infidelity, desperation, and an overriding will to survive. We meet Greta, a cookbook editor who is chosen by Tavi, the hottest writer of his generation, to edit his new book; Paula, a pregnant twenty-one-year-old, who is on the run; Delia, an abused working-class wife who goes into hiding with her children; and Louisa, a painter who moves rapidly from one lover to the next, acting out a self-perpetuating drama over which she has no control. Edgy, fearless, and beautifully spare, Personal Velocity is a superb collection from one of the best writers in contemporary fiction. At fifty, Pippa Lee seems just fine. The devoted wife of a brilliant publisher thirty years her senior, the proud mother of successful twins, and a lovely and adored friend and neighbor, she seems to glow with feminine serenity. But when her husband spontaneously decides they should cast off Gramercy Park for Marigold Village retirement home as a "preemptive strike against his decrepitude," Pippa finds her beatific persona unraveling in alarming ways: the truth is that the gracious woman of the present day has seen more than her fair share of the wild side. By seventeen, Pippa had lived with a Dexedrine-addicted mother, felt the first stirrings of sexuality with a school girlfriend, had an affair with a teacher, and run away from home, set adrift on a course littered with broken hearts until she seemingly found love and security in a family of her own. And now that established world, too, is in danger. In Pippa Lee we have an unforgettable heroine, and a quirky and acutely intelligent portrait of the many lives behind a single name. Even after we've read it, The Private Lives of Pippa Lee is a story that is still unfurling The vibrantly fresh and lustrous stories in Miller's collection explore the multifaceted lives of women in seven arresting portraits. Modern and diverse, these women of different classes and ages struggle with sexuality, fate, motherhood, infidelity, desperation, and an overriding will to survive. We meet Greta, a cookbook editor who is chosen by Tavi, the hottest writer of his generation, to edit his new book. The book becomes a best-seller and Greta is propelled out of her marriage by her own ambition and success. Other characters include Paula, a pregnant twenty-one-year-old, who is on the run from the horror of a man who was hit by a car and died while walking her home from a nightclub; Delia, an abused working-class wife who goes into hiding with her children; and Louisa, a painter who moves rapidly from one lover to the next, acting out a self-perpetuating drama over which she has no control. Edgy, fearless, and beautifully spare, Personal Velocity is a superb collection from one of the best writers in contemporary fiction. ‘a Luminous Writer’ Olivia Laing ‘compelling’ The Times ‘beautifully Nuanced’ Daily Mail Pippa Seems To Have Everything In Life. But Suddenly She Finds Her World Beginning To Unravel. Amid The Buzzing Lawnmowers And Suburban Coffee Mornings, She Starts To Wonder How She Came To Be In This Place. The Answer Is A Story Of Wild Youth, Unexpected Encounters, Affairs And Betrayals, And The Dangerous Security Of Marriage. The Private Lives Of Pippa Lee Brilliantly Reveals The Challenges Of Modern Life – And All The Possibilities That It Holds. Modern stories of women grappling with sexuality, fate, motherhood, infidelity, desperation and an overriding will to survive - from the bestselling author of The Private Lives of Pippa Lee A story of wild youth, unexpected encounters, affairs and betrayals, and the dangerous security of marriage - that has sold over 200,000 copies