Cuckoo

by Anne Piper

Become your own protagonist...

Cuckoo is the story of several women whose lives are interwoven with a common thread – the unassuming, but ever-present, Prue.

At first a little girl in the charge of her pious grandmother, the parentless Prue grows into an introverted and self-conscious adolescent.

Perpetually on the fringes of the affairs of her friends and family, she plays a bit-part as a meek nuisance until she finds an older man and is suddenly propelled into a lead role.

Anne Piper’s second novel is full of wit, subtle studies of character and an unadorned wisdom about love, requited and not, and the relationship between the sexes.

197 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1952

About the author

ANNE PIPER was born in Llan-daff near Cardiff in 1920. She spent the next eleven years in Edinburgh where her father, Professor Richmond, taught Latin at the University. She was educated at an English boarding school, at Newnham College, Cambridge, and at the Sorbonne. From 1942 to 1944 she worked in the Ministry of Information in London, and was sent to India by them in 1944. She married in 1945 and now lives on the Thames at Hammersmith with her husband and three daughters. Her other books published with Endeavour Press include Cuckoo and Love on the Make.

Reviews

[Tanzi]

Honestly, I'm sorry I spent time reading this. The characters are all pretty terrible people, and while that doesn't always make a book unlikable, these characters are poorly developed. I felt some sympathy for the main character, Prue, based on how others in the story presented her until I read the chapters from her point of view. At that point, I felt as much distaste for her as everyone else. It seems like everything turns out OK for everyone in the end, but I just didn't care.

[Fleurtje Eliza]

Flat characters all way through the book, even though I liked the story being told from different points of view that are part of the story as well (not only observers). That said, most of them were not only dull but irritating as well: Liz, as a so-called friend and Caroline, as an aunt who rather sees her niece leave her house...

[Nicole]

Ok

Sad. I liked the different perspectives from the various narrators. It gave a rounder view of Pru. I'm uncertain how to feel about it.