The married couples in this book have two things in common: a skill in
the duplicity that flourishes even in happy marriages, and an invitation
to the Farthingoes' ball. In the months preceding the party, we learn
something of their double lives: The faces that each one exposes to
their spouses and to the world give little hint of their complex and
secret tribulations. By the time they arrive at the ball, each clutching
his or her different hopes and fears, we have become familiar with their
unsmooth paths, and shared many a humorous escapade or private tragedy
with Rachel and Thomas, Mary and Bill, Ursula and Martin, Frances and
Toby, as well as the alluring R. Cotterman and the only questing
bachelor, Ralph.
Sophisticated, sympathetic, witty, and razor-sharp in its observations
of the sub-text of married life, this is a wonderfully accomplished and
enjoyable novel which develops totally out of the characters it creates.
About the author: Huth is the daughter of the actor Harold Huth. She
left school at age 16 in order to paint and to study art in both France
and Italy. At 18 she travelled, mostly alone, across the United States
before returning to England to work on a variety of newspapers and
magazines. She married journalist and travel writer Quentin Crewe and
soon became known most for her writing, having written three collections
of short stories and 11 novels. She also writes plays for radio,
television and stage, and is a well-known freelance journalist, critic,
and broadcaster. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
