'This Is Yesterday is a song for the outsiders, a hymn to the suburban misfits. Here the tensions and oddness of lower-middle class family life are explored in poetic detail . . . A voice of hope for those who boldly follow their own creative path from adolescence to middle age' Benjamin Myers, author of The OffingPeach is alone and adrift in London's sprawl, with a stalled art career and an unhappiness she knows won't be cured by a boyfriend or baby. Then she gets a shocking phone call that brings her face to face with her fractured family, and sends her spiralling into her past, to a scorched summer years ago in 90s suburbia . . .
Back in 1994, Peach longs to flee the stifling nowhere that makes her a misfit. Hot listless days and sleepless drunken nights have awakened in her a latent, destructive curiosity; she haunts airless attics, unlocks sealed doors, pries into private affairs and finally unearths a secret that rips her family apart, disrupting everything and setting the course for the rest of her life.
Now, facing this new crisis, Peach and her sister set out to confront a past they have avoided for two decades and meet a future they have no idea how to navigate.
This is Yesterday is a book about beginnings and endings, about adolescence and ageing, failures, families, love and loneliness. It is the story of how the girls we once were shape the women we become.
Industry Reviews
'This Is Yesterday is a song for the outsiders, a hymn to the suburban misfits. Here the tensions and oddness of lower-middle class family life are explored in poetic detail. Inhabited by weak men and strong women, it is shot through with rumination and echoes with regret, yet offers a voice of hope for those who boldly follow their own creative path from adolescence to middle age' * Benjamin Myers, author of The Offing *
Mind-blowingly masterful with words . . . This Is Yesterday jangled my insides around completely. Rose Ruane is truly something else * Jessica Fostekew, co-host of The Guilty Feminist *
Stunningly written debut . . . The real subject of this enjoyably disturbing book is being a hormonal school-leaver in a dead-end town who feels all the real action is elsewhere -- Wendy Holden * Daily Mail *
This darkly funny book is very insightful about family dynamics and how small choices can leave us far from where we meant to be * Good Housekeeping *
Ruane brings an earthy immediacy to bear on her exploration of the long-simmering tensions that warp the middle-class Lewis family . . . a tale told with passion and honesty -- Hephzibah Anderson * Mail on Sunday *
Sex and desire are complicated, and Ruane captures the how and why of that perfectly . . . Ruane's Peach is someone you'll want to shake and cuddle, sometimes simultaneously, for This is Yesterday conveys the messiness of real life - as well as its poignancy -- Lee Randall * Books from Scotland *
