DAUGHTERS OF JERUSALEM
Daughters of Jerusalem, Charlotte’s second novel, is set in North Oxford, where she grew up. Here, in the Lux family, trouble stirs. Eve, the elder daughter, is seething with loathing for her charismatic sister Phoebe; meanwhile, their mother's best friend, Helena, is about to make a startling confession.
She is sick of this – of Oxford’s sooty castles…She is sick of navy-blue corduroy, Gothic arches, famous fig trees, shabby dons’ wives, cellars, rivers, genius children, stuttering and gold leaf. It is your fault, she thinks, approaching her husband’s college, as she glimpses her neighbour, an entirely silent botanist, attempting to untangle his own beard from a hawthorn tree. None of you are normal. Is normal. And I am.
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Praise for DAUGHTERS OF JERUSALEM
‘A superb, hilarious farce of dysfunctional academic family life. Funny, exciting, lyrical, poignant, redemptive - it was a privilege to review this book’
—Guardian
‘Brilliantly observed…acerbic social comedy of the most unflinching, satisfying kind’
—Sunday Times
‘A witty and absorbing work of fiction…wonderful…surprising and satisfying’
—Times Literary Supplement
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‘Wonderfully observed...Full of surprises and brilliant set pieces’ Waterstone’s Books Quarterly
‘Written with great sharpness and has thrilling detail’ Julia Darling
‘An hilarious lampoon of academic life, set among the pudding-bowl-coiffured families of North Oxford. Underpinning the jokes about self-regarding dons lies a stirring tale of illicit passion...An end-of-term treat’ 50 Best Summer Reads, Independent
‘Assured writing...hilarious...delightful’ Independent on Sunday
‘Daughters of Jerusalem is an edgy affair, mixing arcane absurdity with casual cruelty. The result is a bold and darkly comic novel’ Daily Mail
‘Mendelson has a gift for lively satiric comedy’ 100 Best Summer Reads, Sunday Times
‘Brilliantly observed...acerbic social comedy of the most unflinching, satisfying kind’ Caroline Gascoigne, Sunday Times
‘Bold...engaging...an undoubted talent for comic observation’ The Times
‘Miss Marple meets Rosamond Lehmann…luscious prose and droll comedy…suffused with longing, studded with recherché words and clotted with gastronomic metaphors which make you feel that you should be reading on a chaise longe, stuffing yourself with violet creams’ Observer
‘A polished piece of satire, combining broad comedic strokes with exquisite observations. Her writing abounds in tiny, sensuous details’ Stephanie Cross, Observer (for the pb)
‘An engaging combination of campus satire and domestic drama...In Daughters of Jerusalem Mendelson has created a blue-stocking thriller’ Daily Telegraph
‘Charlotte Mendelson seems to bear a grudge against the whole of Oxford. And I’m glad. Her tale...had me guiltily neglecting both work and household responsibilities for the day I was glued to it...Mendelson turns the pressure up and up. This is funny, moving and gorgeously bitchy’ Telegraph
‘Parts of this book are very funny, parts slightly sinister. And if you think this suggests a comparison with Evelyn Waugh, that would be justified, too, by the excellence of Ms Mendelson’s style. Her prose is taut without being manneredly Spartan; the mot juste is supplied on every occasion’ Oxford Times
‘Captivating’ Alive & Kicking
‘Sharp, funny, sensitive’ Veronica Stallwood, Oxford Today
‘A delicious tale of intrigue and betrayal’ Big Issue
‘Accomplished...beautiful, with flashes of dark humour’ Jewish Chronicle
‘Brilliant and witty...Mendelson’s second bewitchingly erotic and darkly dramatic novel confirms her as a stylish, perceptive chronicler of the heart’s hidden desires’
—Daily Mail
One of The Times’s Best Books of the 21st Century: ‘This magnificently peppery and stylishly written book...utterly engrossing, very funny and wonderfully bitchy’Andrew Holgate, —Sunday Times
‘Brilliant…exhilarating…Exciting and memorably written, this is one of those rare reads that has you galloping to the end, but feeling bereft at having to say goodbye so soon’
—Independent