Author Description

Coming of age in rural England in the eighties is far from straightforward for Kate Happy, in an hilarious debut novel of family, secrets and dead ancestors in the attic.Although Gran is Iris Happy, she was born Iris Tallulah Veronica Miriam Ichmann; and although she's been stuck on Grandpa's farm somewhere between England and Wales since 1943 'with a goddamn ridiculous name ' it has never been home. Home is a place called Brooklyn, which is full of rollercoasters, brown stones, candy, and Chews. Gran is a Chew, but Grandpa made her change that before they married and she ended up here; 'Pregnant and fat and back in Chew-killing Europe, screaming The Father, Son and goddamn Holy Ghost 'It's the early eighties and Kate Happy is being brought up by her grandparents on their huge sprawling 36-roomed house in Herefordshire. Gran has been homesick for Coney Island for forty years, furiously hating her husband and trying to kill him slowly by covering his chicken breasts with fairy liquid but determinedly donning her best pink Chanel suit and high heels and stepping out into the shit-splattered farmyard; Grandpa himself is bonkers, crazy loco, muddled, an ex-naval officer who wanders aro