The Bradshaw Variations - Softcover

'At times I just wanted to punch the air in a frenzy of delighted recognition.' --Julie Myerson

'I enjoyed everything about this dazzling performance of a book ... which wants to know the truth about love, especially middle-aged, married love.' --Observer

'Rachel Cusk's writing is so beautiful that I would happily read her account of a trip to the shops on a rainy morning ... she tells me about myself (and herself), and a world that is deeply familiar, yet seldom pinpointed like this in modern fiction.' --Literary Review

Since leaving his job to look after Alexa, his eight-year-old daughter, Thomas Bradshaw has found the structure of his daily piano practice and the study of musical form brings a nourishment to these difficult middle years. His pursuit of a more artistic way of life shocks and irritates his parents and his in-laws. Why has he swapped roles with Tonie Swann, his intense, intellectual wife who has accepted a demanding full-time University job? How can this be good for Alexa and for the family as a whole? Meanwhile Tonie tunes herself out of domestic life, into the harder, headier world of work where long-since forgotten memories of herself are awakened. She soon finds herself outside their tight family circle and alive to previously unimaginable possibilities . . .