A gin-fueled love story with one part One Day mixed with one part
Zadie Smith and a splash of Ali Smith.
Included in the Guardian's "Top Ten books about unrequited love"
"Alright" I said, "I'll try..." This is how Emily Stuart opens her
intricate tale of a classic love affair that becomes Caroline's Bikini
a swirling cocktail of infatuation, obsession, and imagination. The
moment that Emily's friend Evan Gordonstone - a successful middle-aged
financier - meets Caroline Beresford - a glamorous former horsewoman,
and now housewife, hostess, and landlady - there is a "PING!" At
least, that's how Evan describes it to Emily when he persuades her to
record his story: the story of falling into unrequited love, which is as
old as Western literature itself. Thus begins a hypnotic series of
conversations set against the beguiling backdrop of West London's bars,
fueled in intensity by endless gin and tonics and Q&As. From the depths
of mid-winter to July's hot swelter, Emily's narration of Evan's passion
for Caroline will take him to the brink of his own destruction.
Written in a voice so playful, so charismatic, and so thoughtfully aware
of the responsibilities of fiction it can only be by Kirsty Gunn,
Caroline's Bikini is a swooning portrait of courtly love - in a modern
world not celebrated for its restraint and abstraction. Ready. Steady.
Go!
