Daughters of Jerusalem
Charlotte Mendelson
2004 Winner
Somerset Maugham Award
2003 Winner
John Llewellyn Rhys Prize
2003 Nominee
Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award
Synopsis
Beautifully written and bitingly funny, Charlotte Mendelson's prize-winning Daughters of Jerusalem is a gripping novel of hidden love and hate, of the desire to belong, and the need for escape.
Amidst the crumbling yellow stone of Oxford and its prestigious university, secrets are stirring within the Lux family home . . .
Jean, the constrained and guilt-ridden wife of an academic, is waiting for excitement – and it will come from an unexpected source.
Eve, Jean's intelligent eldest daughter, luxuriates in wounded murderous jealousy of her younger sister and is on the brink of snapping.
Raymond, the loathed rival of Jean's husband, begins to show interest in Eve.
And Helena, Jean's best friend, has a confession, the revelation of which may just alter everyone's lives forever.
'Brilliant and witty . . . Mendelson's second bewitchingly erotic and darkly dramatic novel confirms her as a stylish, perceptive chronicler of the heart's hidden desires' - Daily Mail
'Superb . . . funny, exciting, lyrical, poignant, redemptive' - Guardian
This deliciously waspish — actually, hilarious — story of a destructive Oxford academic family has stayed with me longer than many did. Pure, very wicked joyAndrew Holgate, The Sunday Times
A superb, hilarious farce of dysfunctional academic family life . . . Funny, exciting, lyrical, poignant, redemptiveThe Guardian
Brilliant and witty . . . Mendelson’s second bewitchingly erotic and darkly dramatic novel confirms her as a stylish, perceptive chronicler of the heart’s hidden desiresDaily Mail