Pru Goes Troppo — Stevan Eldred-Grigg

Pru has been married to Guy for a quarter of a century. She hasn’t had sex for ten years. ‘Why the hell do I live my life this way?’ she says to herself. ‘I mean – really!’ Change comes from out of the blue when odd old Uncle Bertie dies in Samoa and leaves his property to Guy. On a whim, the couple decide to go and take a look at what they know must be a tropical paradise. Not their usual stamping ground, you understand. Daringly, they fly to Apia.Pru soon finds herself thinking things, feeling things, doing things she’s never till now come close to thinking, feeling, doing.‘Are we just an ornamental waste of space, d’you think?’ she asks Guy one day in Samoa.‘I rather think we are, darling.’‘Oh dear.’Pru Goes Troppo is a comic novel about the ups and downs of a wealthy married couple who are privileged parasites, yet curiously innocent.‘Eldred-Grigg has a sharp eye for social mores and the habits of love and family. A super story about rashly setting off on a mid-life adventure in a totally new culture. For Pru and Guy, things might never be the same again.’ Tina Shaw.‘Unexamined prejudice and inert desires are overturned and enlivened when a snobbish aristocratic Cantabrian couple undertake a journey of discovery in Samoa. An exploration of self-repression and new beginnings, meticulously described. Frequently funny and very human.’ Kerry Donovan Brown