An accidental woman by Jonathan Coe

Take a birth. Any birth’ is how this novel begins, and is the first ‘accident’ of many in a novel that is all about chance, a life without shape or purpose. The life the author chooses to describe is that of Maria, a girl who has just been offered a place at Oxford . The novel’s plot suggests a typical coming-of-age story, following Maria through university and her 20s, boyfriends, work, marriage and children. She is an unusual heroine, though, and the novel is written in an unusual and self-conscious manner.

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