Results for "The Appointment" in Family Life

A deeply moving contemporary literary novel about illness, grief, invisible labour, migration, dignity and the long wait to be properly seen. Abdul Matin Choudhury has spent much of his life cleaning the rooms other people pass through: school corridors, hospital wards, staff toilets, waiting areas, floors polished before anyone arrives and dirt cleared before anyone notices. His work has always been quiet, necessary and almost invisible. On a wet Tuesday morning in York, Abdul goes to hospital for what he tells himself is only an appointment.

Excitement is running high in the Adams family. Mr Finch, after a long career in secret government work, is to be knighted - which means that Chinese Lady will become a real 'Lady'! What with having to find a new outfit suitable for the occasion, and worrying about whether she'll have to curtsey to the king, the redoubtable matriarch of the Adams family scarcely knows if she's coming or going.

In December 1930, just before Christmas, the Gibbsville, Pennsylvania, social circuit is electrified with parties and dances. At the center of the social elite stand Julian and Caroline English. But in one rash moment born inside a highball glass, Julian breaks with polite society and begins a rapid descent toward self-destruction.