With prose that is vibrant, witty, and off-the-wall, this recent winner of Britain's Whitbread Award for Best Novel of the Year traces the emotional breakdown--and then restoration--of Eliza Peabody, a smart and wildly imaginative woman who has become unbearably isolated in her prosperous home in present-day South London. A startling portrait of a woman who is dying alive.--Ruth Rendell, Daily Telegraph (London).