These Other Three
A wry, dialogue-led novel of marriage, faith and friendship, told across three decisive Saturdays.
Two friendship groups get the same news on the same Saturday: Simon and Grace are marrying in November. For Andrew, Simon and Luke, three old friends who met studying theology at university, a reunion dinner reopens twenty years of unspoken rivalry. For Jo, Mary and Grace, a weekend at a rented cottage becomes the first of several unflinching conversations about the marriages, and the disappointments, life has actually handed them.
As the wedding approaches, Luke's career as a vicar collapses under a bishop who manages his parish by spreadsheet, Jo weighs how much longer she can keep up appearances, and Andrew, still hiding behind wit and an unfinished argument about the apostle Paul, is asked to be best man and finds he has more to say than he planned.
These Other Three is a sequel to These Three. It moves in short, overlapping scenes that let its six central characters, and the people orbiting them, speak largely for themselves. It is funny in places and quietly sad in others, and it does not tie up its marriages, or its faith, in a neat bow.
For readers of wry British ensemble fiction, in the vein of Barbara Pym, David Nicholls and Joanna Trollope, who want humour that doesn't flinch from disappointment, and an ending that trusts them to sit with what's unresolved.
Customer Reviews
ThriftBooks ® and the ThriftBooks ® logo are registered trademarks of Thrift Books Global, LLC
