GRANDMOTHERS, THE - Harper Collins

The title story, The Grandmothers', is an astonishing tour de force, a shockingly intimate portrait of an unconventional extended family and the lengths to which they will go to find happiness and love. Written with a keen cinematic eye, the story is a ruthless dissection of the veneer of middle-class morality and convention which manages to be at once universal and desperately, heartbreakingly personal. A second story, Victoria and the Staveneys, takes us through 20 years of the life of a young underprivilged black girl in London. A chance meeting introduces her to the world of the Staveneys