Penelope Lively can do  just about everything when it comes to putting words down on paper!  In this delicious and delightful collection of 14 short stories she demonstrates her versatility, and each story was a gem.  Most of the stories were humorous resulting in a knowing smile and often a chuckle.  She’s not Woody Allen laugh out loud funny, but insightful and able to find the humor in everyday life and everyday people.

The eponymous story is set in Australia on a motor coach tour where a woman confronts her husband with his adultery, and adultery appears to be one of Lively’s staples since it was the main plot element in her first novel, ‘The Road to Litchfield’ and three of the stories in this book. Another theme that appears in several stories is the occurrence of crime in everyday life, not the sensational serial murders of a Jo Nesbo or Thomas Harris, but the trivial, almost accidental crime that embroils innocent people in the course of their mundane lives—car jacking, robbery, theft.  As Lively would have it, all of these incidents end peaceably and without harm and serve as another way for her to stand back and poke lovingly and laughingly at our world.  She’s also capable of suspense and even a touch of terror in several of the stories.

I loved the final story in which a 70’ish year old mother spends days preparing the Christmas holiday dinner for her three daughters whose only contribution to the festivities are an endless list of requests, demands, suggestions for dishes and other elements of the holiday celebration.  The final paragraph will delight you and no spoiler alert here.  You’ll have to read the story yourself, and I hope you do.

Read Lively.