Anna is an ordinary woman in an extraordinary situation. She?s having a baby, the father?s gay, her lover?s a woman and she still hasn?t told her parents. Her best friend Ruby is feckless, forty and fondling every man she can. Her neighbours are the OAPs from Hell and across the road Greg is pining for Acorn, the eco-poet who abandoned him with their baby. Into all this walks Shirley. She?s left her provincial home and desperately needs a life: but Pearl, her mother, is coming too. In Around the Houses Anna and her new family deal with the consequences of coming out; Ruby has to face up to a violent past: Shirley falls for Greg; and Pearl finds her true self at the Cosmic Caf?. The subject of this quirky, insightful and sharp novel, Balham will never be the same again.
