The Portable Veblen

A laugh-out-loud love story with big ideas - and squirrels SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILEYS WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2016 Can squirrels speak? Do snails scream? Will a young couple, newly engaged, make it to their wedding day? Will their dysfunctional families ruin everything? Will they be undone by the advances of a very sexy, very unscrupulous heiress to a pharmaceuticals corporation? Is getting married even a remotely reasonable idea in the twenty-first century? And what in the world is a `Veblen' anyway? `Raw and weird and hilarious' Guardian `A touching, wildly funny and peculiarly elegant look at the travails of love of all kinds' Sunday Express `Elizabeth McKenzie is clearly some sort of genius' Paul Murray `I can't remember a book I enjoyed more' Nina Stibbe `Seriously funny and extraordinarily well written' Jonathan Franzen, Guardian books of the year