Proto Zoe

The Zoe of this book is a real person, middle aged by now, and of a generally sunny disposition. When asked by the publishers to comment on the use the author has made of her experience, however, Zoe turned very grumpy. Amanda Prantera had no business to write these things down for public consumption, she said. What I told her, I told her in the strictest confidence. They were serious things, too, when they happened, important and very significant episodes in my life. She has made them sound comical, bordering on the hilarious. We are not on speaking terms any more, but I'd like to suggest to her that she go back to writing the sort of books she wrote before and leave innocent people like myself alone. The publishers hope that readers will disagree with this judgement and find the eleven episodes not merely funny (which they are) but touching and eloquent and well worth being told. Certainly, by the time they have followed the heroine's zig-zag progress from childhood to maturity, they will disagree with the term 'innocent'. As a child Zoe may have been naive, gauche and inexperienced but innocent she never was - even before meeting the instructive Mr. Friedmann or the unforgettable sewing lesson with her grandmother, and long before her highly unorthodox schooling. It is a path frought with comic misunderstandings, adult subterfuge and the perils of non-conformity.