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The Elected Member
Norman is the clever one of a close-knit Jewish family in the East End of London. Infant prodigy; brilliant barrister; the apple of his parents' eyes . . . until at forty-one he becomes a drug addict, confined to his bedroom, at the mercy of his hallucinations and paranoia. For Norman, his committal to a mental hospital represents the ultimate act of betrayal. For Rbbi Zweck, Norman's father, his son's deterioration is a bitter reminder of his own guilt and failure. Only Bella, the unmarried sister, still in her childhood white ankle socks, can reach across the abyss of pain to bring father and son the elusive peace which they both desperately crave.
Sunday Best
George Verrey Smith, a suburban teacher, is bored. Bored with his wife, his life, his job. He endures each bleak day with his joyless wife named Joy. The only bright spot in George's life is Sunday. On Sunday George looks his best. On Sunday George dresses up. On Sunday, George becomes Emily. Adorned in his wife's discarded dresses, a blond wig and a slathering of make-up, George feels at ease in drag. It is during a stint as 'Emily' that one of George's colleagues is murdered. George is a prime suspect and must remain in his alter-ego as a genteel older woman to avoid arrest. Will he remain as Emily for the rest of his life? Would he be happy to do so? Booker Prize winner Bernice Ruben's witty and intelligent novel is as entertaining as it is unusual. 'An absorbing book. It's tightly constructed, with a vivid and entertaining plot...Bernice Rubens is capable of powerful writing' - Book World
Brothers
First pub. 1983. The story of four generations of the Bindel family. From Imperial Russia in 1825, they head to Western Europe and return to modern Russia. Rubens won the Booker Prize for The elected member.
A Five Year Sentence
'Miss Hawkins looked at her watch. It was two-thirty. If everything went according to schedule, she could safely reckon to be dead by six o'clock.' But by the day's end, events have taken a dramatic turn and Miss Hawkins is sentenced to live. Forcibly retired, she is presented by her colleagues with a five-year diary. Programmed since childhood to total obedience, Miss Hawkins slavishly follows her dairy's commands until the impossible happens – she meets a man. As a last reprieve from the horrors of loneliness she embarks on a determined full-scale mission to taste life's secret pleasures – and pains– until the cup runs dry...
I, Dreyfus
Sir Alfred Dreyfus is in jail, innocent of the charges against him, guilty of a lifetime of denial. Headmaster of one of Britain's most prestigious schools, knighted for his services to education, he has built a distinguished career whilst carefully concealing his Jewish roots. When he is falsely imprisoned for a horrific crime, he realises it is not just his enemies who have difficulty with his identity.
I Sent a Letter to My Love
Amy Evans retained all her life the squat nose of her childhood, stubbed on to her face like a plasticine afterthought, a chin too long for any practical purpose, and eyes so close together that it seemed the sole function of the bridge of her nose was too keep them apart. For comfort she would go down to the beach, where the breeze from the sea blew into her face her share of the beauty to which her brother had so liberally helped himself. The gulls would wait for her to leave, no matter how long she stayed, for they were real gentlemen - the only gentlemen she was ever to meet in her life. Now in her late fifties, Amy faces a struggle on two fronts. Loneliness looms the larger as the chance of finding love grows more remote. Survival depends on the outcome of her search for a love object, and I Sent a Letter to My Love set in Porthcawl on the coast of South Wales, tells the moving and unsentimental story of Amy's bold play for happiness, and her dangerous success. The richly comic gifts, the wit and inventiveness that distinguished all Bernice Rubens' work are reinforced in this novel by a maturity and depth of compassion for her characters.
Chosen People
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A Five Year Sentence
A Booker Prize runner up. Miss Hawkins looked at her watch. It was 2.30. If everything went to plan, she would be dead by six o'clock. But instead, having been sentenced to live, she embarked on a mission to taste life's secret pleasures. The author won the Booker Prize for The Elected Member.
A Solitary Grief
Alistair Crown, psychiatrist, knew all there was to know about guilt, until he himself fell victim to it. He must now learn for himself to deal with a grief prolonged by guilt, a grief he cannot share.
When I Grow Up
In this evocation of her life, Bernice Rubens escorts us, with an array of stories - through her wartime childhood, her first 'major folly', through stints as a teacher, lady's maid, and actress, before stumbling upon a career that bemused her to the end of her days.
