Old Baggage

As featured on BBC Radio 4 Good Reads ''The work of a novelist in her prime'' Daily Telegraph''Wise and witty'' Sarah Hughes, Observer''Essential . . . Evans is a brilliant storyteller'' Stylist''A timely, bittersweet comic novel'' Guardian''A thoughtful, funny, companionable novel'' Sunday Times_______________________________What do you do next, after you''ve changed the world?It is 1928. Matilda Simpkin, rooting through a cupboard, comes across a small wooden club - an old possession of hers, unseen for more than a decade.Mattie is a woman with a thrilling past and a chafingly uneventful present. During the Women''s Suffrage Campaign she was a militant. Jailed five times, she marched, sang, gave speeches, smashed windows and heckled Winston Churchill, and nothing - nothing - since then has had the same depth, the same excitement.Now in middle age, she is still looking for a fresh mould into which to pour her energies. Giving the wooden club a thoughtful twirl, she is struck by an idea - but what starts as a brilliantly idealistic plan is derailed by a connection with Mattie''s militant past, one which begins to threaten every principle that she stands for.Old Baggage is a funny and bittersweet portrait of a woman who has never, never given up the fight.