Bitter Sweet Symphony Book

Like her first novel, Haven't Stopped Dancing Yet, Shyama Perera's Bitter Sweet Symphony is a heady mix of comedy, tragedy and pop music: a symphony of, and to, love and marriage, sex and the comforts of bourgeois divorce. On the face of it, Perera's subject is troubling enough: the unexpected breakdown of an established marriage and family: "This morning, my adored husband of 10 years, told me he was in love with someone else. Then he went, leaving me with our two small children aged seven and three." Following Buster's departure, Nina--wife, mother, soon-to-be-divorcee--is thrown back on the resources of family, friends and a new-found self who veers between the delights of hedonism and the consolations of anger at a man who can, it seems, simply walk away from wife, home and children: "The lesson is learned. Buster has life choices. We don't. I don't." That anger runs through the book, its unflinching exposé of the sexual politics of love, responsibility and commitment. But anger never gets the better of the drive to life that turns Nina into a heroine for the comfortable classes of a comfortable London. At the same time as she can "cry for women everywhere because, no matter what the buck always stops with us", Nina is also fighting for her right to party: "If all ex-wives got pissed and danced, the world would be a brighter place." A readable, and very contemporary, morality tale about winning through to the right side of friendship, love and money, Bitter Sweet Symphony ends with an upbeat message to its readers: "Love like you've never been hurt/Dance like nobody's watching." --Vicky LebeauRead More