Author:
Format: Quality Paperback
Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press
Published: Oct 1995
Genre: Fiction - General
Retail Price: $12.95
Pages: 262
Winner of the McVitie Prize and the Scottish Arts Council Book Award
When it was first published in Great Britain, Foreign Parts was described as 'a road movie for feminists . . . a funny, sharp and gutsy portrayal of female friendship,' and 'a painstakingly crafted, multi-layered investigation of contemporary female experience.' What begins as a driving holiday in Northern France for two Scotswomen turns into a caustic and funny account of dysfunctional relationshipsboth between men and women and between women friends. Cassie and Ronain their late thirties, both single and childlessare on each other's nerves from the moment they cross the Channel: Cassie is testy and cynical, Rona patient and plodding. Both are self-conscious of the fact that they seem to fit the stereotype of two 'spinsters' linked by loneliness, and consequently rebel against the notion that a woman needs a man to feel 'complete.' Faced with the dilemma of 'fancying men and not liking them very much,' the women ponder alternatives as they endure one tourist nightmare after another.