Easy Peasy

by Lesley Glaister

Zelda is terrified that her love affair is about to end, and she prays for something - anything - to prevent the inevitable heartbreak. Then she is told that her father has hanged himself. His death brings back intense memories of her childhood and all that remains unspoken in her family. Zelda hides much from her mother, even the lover she would give anything to keep. With questions she can no longer ignore, Zelda for the first time begins to search for her father's truth and pieces together clues to his suffering. And by confronting her dark and disturbing memories, she opens up to intimacy with her family, with her lover, with herself.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Novelist Lesley Glaister was born in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, England. She grew up in Suffolk, moving to Sheffield with her first husband, where she took a degree with the Open University. She was 'discovered' by the novelist Hilary Mantel when she attended a course given by the Arvon Foundation in 1989. Mantel was so impressed by her writing that she recommended her to her own literary agent.

Lesley Glaister's first novel, Honour Thy Father (1990), won both a Somerset Maugham Award and a Betty Trask Award. Her other novels include Trick or Treat (1991), Limestone and Clay (1993), for which she was awarded the Yorkshire Post Book Award (Yorkshire Author of the Year), Partial Eclipse (1994) and The Private Parts of Women (1996), Now You See Me (2001), the story of the unlikely relationship between Lamb, a former patient in a psychiatric ward, and Doggo, a fugitive on the run from the police, As Far as You Can Go (2004), a psychological drama, in which a young couple, Graham and Cassie, travel to a remote part of Australia to take up a caretaking job, only to be drawn into the dark secrets of their mysterious employers. Nina Todd Has Gone (2007) was another complex psychological thriller. Chosen, a dark and suspenseful book about a woman trying to rescue her brother from a cult, was followed by Little Egypt in 2014. This novel - set in the 20's in Northern England and Egypt, won a Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Award. Her next novel, The Squeeze, published 2017, centres on a relationship between a teenage Romanian sex-worker - a victim of trafficking - and a law-abiding, family man from Oslo. It's an unusual and (of course, twisted!) love story. Because not all love is romantic. In 2020 Blasted Things was published. This one is set just after World War 1 and is about the warping after-effects of a global war on society and on individuals. The two main characters, Clementine and Vincent, both damaged in different ways, must find their way in the post-war period. For them this results in a most peculiar kind of relationship and one that can only end in distaster.

Lesley Glaister lives with her husband in Edinburgh with frequent sojourns in Orkney. She has three sons and teaches Creative Writing at the University or St Andrews. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Reviews

[Cliff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really surprised at the reaction here to this slim, engaging book. For me, Glaister nailed on perfectly the cruelty and meanness of children to each other. The feel of it, the truth of it, made me queasy - maybe it's an English thing.

[Sandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was amazing. In part because, after a run of reading crime novels, I was struck by how much harder it is to create a tale with tension and impact when there is not something to solve. And just as much because of the nuances and depths of each of the characters - something Lesley Glaister does so very well, understanding the capacity for cruelty we all possess, the misunderstandings and ignorances of childhood, the later fears and inappropriate behaviours as adults.

Certainly one to be re-read.

[David Lockwood · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars. Peasy but not so easy.

[Cat. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is set in the England of the 90s, but moves back and forth quite fluidly between the main Griselda's childhood and the present. Her father was a POW of the Japanese during WWII. He's had terrible nightmares for the rest of his life; he finally commits suicide (which happens on about page 3 of the book, so not really a spoiler), and then Griselda spends 9 months trying to figure out who he was, and why he was so distant for her & her family. Meanwhile she is dealing with this new odd-looking boy whom father has taken great notice of, to the point of excluding her & her sister.

This is a book to read back through after it's finished; it's like a puzzle with pieces you didn't even recognize

[Sbrdsbks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall a nice book, four stars is a bit much but three is not OK either. Some parts were quite strong, but sometimes it went on too long about the same subject (the building up to the cruel scene in the garden took many pages). And at the end I still don't understand why the father didn't pay any attention to his daughters.

[Marian · Rating 1 out of 5]

I generally love Lesley Glaister -- you can't get better creepy psychological fiction than her Trick or Treat -- but this stank. Tried to hard, unappealing characters, a narrative that didn't hang together. It's no loss that it's out of print.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great characterisation, as I've come to expect from this author. Not her best but still a good read - 8/10.

[Andrea Sachs · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't like the people, didn't like the story.