Man or Mango?: A Lament - Paperback

by Lucy Ellmann (Author)

By the Booker-shortlisted author of Ducks, Newburyport, a formally madcap and prescient novel about men (and women), mangos (and bees), and modern love.

Reclusive Eloïse lives with her cats and her cello in an English country cottage, privately building a case against men, women, the Queen, Nazi list-makers, fluorescent lighting, her ex-flatmate Howard, nuclear bombs, and toilet-roll-holder manufacturers. She has a real thing about giant pumpkin growers too. George is an American poet, recently arrived in the UK. Struggling to finish an epic poem on ice hockey, he plays a lot of pinball and gets chased around by his students. Lost, lonely, and in love, he and Eloïse really should be together, yet it seems they may never meet up...

But Man or Mango? is more than a lament for unrequited transatlantic romance. Funny and furious, it is a scathing, searing, rollicking and vertiginous reflection on life and love in a belligerent world.

Author Biography

Lucy Ellmann was born in the US but now lives in Scotland. She advises other American women to do the same. Her first novel, Sweet Desserts, won the Guardian Fiction Prize. Her latest, Ducks, Newburyport, won the Goldsmiths Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction. This was mighty generous of everybody but, really, all wealth should be in the hands of women.