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People Like Ourselves
People Like Ourselves
May 9, 2025 12:43 PM

Author:Pamela Jooste

People Like Ourselves

Julia belongs to the inner circle of Johannesburg high society. But in the New South Africa, things have changed - the days of tea on the lawn are over.

Julia's husband, Douglas, is a serial adulterer and is no longer willing to pay for the small luxuries she has always enjoyed. Her daughter has rebelled herself right out of her life. She doesn't seem to be able to manage the 'home workers' who have developed a will of their own, and her best friend, Caroline, is quietly considering killing her husband.

Now Douglas's ex-wife, who is never spoken of, has announced her intention of coming to visit from London bringing, no doubt, her politically correct credentials along with her. She's coming to see Nelson Mandela, she says.

People Like Ourselves takes a wry look at the brave new world that is the 'African miracle' today, by the prize-winning author of Frieda and Min, Like Water in Wild Places and Dance with a Poor Man's Daughter.

Reviews

'Her writing is clear, light and sharply observant'

—— Barbara Trapido , Spectator

'Jooste is a significant voice in South African writing...she challenges us to see the hurt, the anxiety, the truths'

—— Cape Argus

'Few novelists have written about the new South Africa in this accessible, humorous and insightful way, to reveal a daring and provocative vision of life after truth and reconciliation'

—— Cape Times

Like the recent novels by Ian McEwan and Sarah Waters, In the Dark successfully modernises the past. By focusing on life's murkier undercurrents... the characters come to seem appealingly familiar

—— Sophia Harrison , Sunday Times

A thoughtful diligent writer

—— Sunday Telegraph

Deborah Moggach's affection for her compex, damaged characters shines through the dark setting in this tender, funny and unsettling book

—— The Gloss

The details of life in an Edwardian household are researched to perfection

—— Scotland on Sunday

The great joy of this tender little novel is Deborah Moggach's sensory imagination

—— Guardian

The characterisation is superb, Moggach has brilliantly resurrected a world of genteel penury and intense, furtive sex, and the book exudes quiet excellence

—— Mail on Sunday

Maupin remains a great storyteller, a magnificently unrepentant liberal, and a wise, witty observer of the differences which make us human

—— Sunday Telegraph

A creepy tale….set in a country house awash with secrets and strange happenings

—— Bella magazine

She takes relish in recreating a familiar Edwardian landscape, peopled by eligible cads and imperious dowagers... Jones’s highly combustible period piece makes the dramas at Downton look like a stroll in the park

—— Emma Hagestadt , Independent

Darkly humorous, quirky and engrossing, this is a ghostly tale full of twists and turns

—— Choice Magazine

What a delicious read! Like something written by a wicked Jane Austen, here is love and error in a ramshackle manor house complete with railway survivors, a birthday party and a pony. I was completely captivated by its madcap nature and then, utterly unprepared for the strange fruit that the story became. Passing like a spring fever, here is a fairy tale that stays with you long after it is gone. I couldn't put it down

—— SARAH BLAKE, author of The Postmistress

The Uninvited Guests is at once a shimmering comedy of manners and disturbing commentary on class. It is so well-written, so intricately plotted, that every page delivers some new astonishment. It is a brilliant novel

—— ANN PATCHETT, author of State of Wonder

What opens as an amusing Edwardian country house tale soon becomes a sinister tragi-comedy of errors, in which the dark underbelly of human nature is revealed in true Shakespearean fashion. Sadie Jones is a most talented and imaginative storyteller, and The Uninvited Guests is a very clever novel

—— JACQUELINE WINSPEAR, author of Elegy for Eddie

I will be surprised if I read anything stranger this year but I can’t help admiring Jones’s whimsical invention and the quality of her writing

—— Vanessa Berridge , Daily Express

A modern Mitford saga

—— ASOS Magazine

Award-winning Sadie Jones' third novel is her best yet. Hugely enjoyable with a superb, supernatural twist

—— Tablet

Cooly playful...the luscious prose is precisely steered

—— Helen Dunmore , Guardian

An intelligent and poignant reflection on death and loss… a fabulous read

—— Lesley Mc Dowell , Glasgow Sunday Herald

Sadie Jones…enters new literary territory with a whimsical Edwardian farce that takes its lead from the darker offerings of Saki and JB Priestley...The novel's denouement is satisfyingly outlandish

—— Emma Hagestadt , Independent

With elegant ease, Jones spins a good old-fashioned comedy of manners

—— Katie Owen , Sunday Telegraph

Andrew Motion brings lyricism but, more importantly, rollicking adventure to this sequel to Treasure Island

—— Mail on Sunday
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