The Facts of Life

What do you do when your youngest daughter returns home carrying the infant she was supposed to give away? Cassie is fey, given to flights of fancy and bouts of mental instability - not exactly ideal material for child rearing in post-war Coventry. With a sigh but also a certain degree of joy at the prospect of a baby boy in the family, Martha Vine, mother of seven daughters, rolls up her sleeves as matriarch and simply gets on with assigning the care of baby Frank to one after the other of her daughters. But just like his wayward mother Cassie, Frank is an out of the ordinary child, and his gifts are displayed to the world in ways that none of them could ever have imagined. Graham Joyce displays the rare ability, as a man, to be able to convincingly write from the point of view of a woman, creating a novel that is insightful, clever and above all, a pure joy to become thoroughly immersed in. In addition to this, he also manages to give the novel an informative slant, revealing the social and historical aspects of rebuilding and surviving in England after the Second World War. Just like the characters within its pages, The Facts of Life is a novel that has an edge of the fantastical to it, increasing its potential readership and making it the deserving winner of The World Fantasy Award. (Kirkus UK)