SMUT


One of England’s finest and most loved writers explores the uncomfortable

and tragicomic gap between people’s public appearance and their private

desires in two tender and surprising stories.

In The Greening of Mrs. Donaldson, a

recently bereaved widow finds interesting ways to supplement her income

by performing as a patient for medical students, and renting out her

spare room. Quiet, middle-class, and middle-aged, Mrs. Donaldson will

soon discover that she rather enjoys role-play at the hospital, and the

irregular and startling entertainment provided by her tenants.

In The Shielding of Mrs.

more …

One of England’s finest and most loved writers explores the uncomfortable

and tragicomic gap between people’s public appearance and their private

desires in two tender and surprising stories.

In The Greening of Mrs. Donaldson, a

recently bereaved widow finds interesting ways to supplement her income

by performing as a patient for medical students, and renting out her

spare room. Quiet, middle-class, and middle-aged, Mrs. Donaldson will

soon discover that she rather enjoys role-play at the hospital, and the

irregular and startling entertainment provided by her tenants.

In The Shielding of Mrs. Forbes, a

disappointed middle-aged mother dotes on her only son, Graham, who

believes he must shield her from the truth. As Graham’s double life

becomes increasingly complicated, we realize how little he understands,

not only of his own desires but also those of his mother.

A

master storyteller dissects a very English form of secrecy with two

stories of the unexpected in otherwise apparently ordinary lives.

less …
  • Picador
  • Paperback
  • January 2012
  • 160 Pages
  • 9781250003164

Buy the Book

$14.00

Bookshop.org indies Bookstore

About Alan Bennett

Alan Bennett has

been one of England’s leading dramatists since the success of Beyond the Fringe. The History Boys won six

Tony Awards; his most recent play is The Habit of Art.

Praise

“Artfully entertaining…On one particular subject Bennett is incomparably

brilliant: role-playing, which is the meat of both stories.”—Simon

Schama, Financial Times (London)

“Bennett’s humor consistently resides in the logic of the parenthetical

aside, the comedy of the false appearances or misperceptions being

challenged or disabused.…Mrs. Donaldson is not as unconventional as she

thought herself, and no one around Mr. Forbes is where—or who—they

pretend to be.”—The Guardian (London)

“Tender and comic…This is Bennett’s world, where repression is never far

from the sexual act….Good, old-fashioned British humor with the

lightest of subversive twists.”—The Independent (London)