Mrs Kimble - Jennifer Haigh

Covering a span of twenty five years, Mrs Kimble tells the story of three women married in succession to the same man - a charismatic opportunist named Ken Kimble. Told from the perspective of each Mrs Kimble, it offers a mesmerising look at how three very different women become accomplices in their own deception.

We see Ken Kimble through the eyes of the women he seduces: his first wife, Birdie, who struggles to hold herself together in the months following his desertion; his second wife, Joan, a lonely heiress recovering from personal tragedy, who sees in Kimble her last chance at happiness; and finally Dinah, a beautiful but damaged woman half his age. Woven throughout is the story of Kimble's son Charlie, whose life is forever affected by a father he barely remembers.

Ken Kimble is able to become, for a while at least, all things to all women. To each of the three Mrs Kimbles, he appears as a hero, to whom powerful needs and nameless longings may be attached. Only later do they glimpse the truth about this elusive, unknowable man.

Each Mrs Kimble is of a different generation, with different expectations of men and of themselves - yet each is able to convince herself that Ken Kimble is what is missing from her life, and pledge herself to a man she barely knows. Mrs Kimble is a meditation on marriage and the illusions upon which it is based.

Beautifully written, stunningly original, this emotionally compelling novel of marriage and illusion marks the debut of an astonishing new literary voice.