Lynn Freed

Haunted by phantoms of World War II and the Holocaust, young Cressida lives in terror of George Harding, who, severely disfigured, has returned from the front to recover on his family's African estate. When Harding plucks young Cressida's beautiful mother and family from financial ruin, establishing them in the old servants' quarters, Cressida is swept into a life inexorably bound to his. In her new setting, she is conscripted to enliven Harding's...

"A marvelous collection." —The New York Times Book Review
Traversing decades and continents, The Romance of Elsewhere captures the dilemma of the expat with Lynn Freed’s signature honesty and humor. She takes on subjects as disparate as Disneyland, lovers, ecotourism, shopping, serious illness, and the anomaly of writers who blossom into full power only in old age. Freed's new collection further establishes her...

This collection of short fiction deals with the struggles between mothers and their wayward daughters, the often preposterous bonds that tie men and women together, and the complex games masters and servants play with one another. Whether describing a mother mired in senile dementia in "Ma," a young girl's loss of innocence with an itinerant knife-sharpener in "Under the House," or a young woman incapable of conventional love in "An Error of Desire,"...

This haunting, beautifully composed novel brilliantly evokes the end of an era, and the small, magical spark that ignites a new beginning. For over ten years, Ruth Frank, the memorable protagonist of Home Ground, has been coming home to the world she left behind in South Africa. Home from Oxford. Home from New York. Home from her childless and passionless marriage in New York. Since leaving South Africa, Ruth has congratulated herself on leaving the...