BIRDIE, Joan and Dinah are different women with one thing in common: their husband.
Over a 25-year period, they cook, care for and coddle Ken Kimble, an abysmal, amoral man with just enough charm to get his foot in the door and not enough love to keep him there.
His first wife is devastated when he walks out, turning to drink and leaving her children to fend for themselves; his second gives him the keys to a financial kingdom before conveniently dying of cancer; and his third is left to pick up the pieces when her supposedly respectable, pillar-of-the-community husband skips town, closely followed by the police and the FBI.
This is a complex, intriguing story, beautifully written by first-time author Jennifer Haigh, who manages to convey terrible heartache with the lightest of touches and brings humour to situations which could easily tip over into maudlin melodrama.
Updated: 08:42 Wednesday, June 16, 2004
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