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Thomas and Mary
Thomas and Mary
Jan 13, 2026 11:01 AM

Author:Tim Parks

Thomas and Mary

‘Somehow it seemed to him the only thing that would really solve the problem would be to return to the sea and find the old ring with their names and the wedding date engraved inside, in 22-carat gold, and put it on again and then the world would magically return to what it had been before. Many years before.

This did not happen.’

Thomas and Mary have been married for thirty years. They have two children, a dog, a house in the suburbs. But after years of drifting apart, things – finally – come to a head.

In this love story in reverse, Tim Parks recounts what happens when youthful devotion has long given way to dog walking, separate bed times, and tensions over who left the fridge door open.

Lurching from comedy to tragedy, via dependence, cold re-examination, tenderness and betrayal, Thomas and Mary is a fiercely intimate chronicle of a marriage – capturing the offshoots of pain sent through an entire family, when the couple at its heart decide it’s all over.

Reviews

In this darkly funny work, Parks offers a story that doesn’t shy away from the complexity of relationships, and from the ineffability, indeed, impossibility, of the unmade decision.

—— Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi , Independent

Mordantly amusing, deeply sad novel… Plainly written, vivid portrait of a marriage… A cautionary tale for couples heedless of the care and kindness a good relationship requires, and a horror story for those who discover they are simply but irreparably mismatched.

—— Rosemary Goring , The Herald

A blackly comic study of a 30-year-old marriage.

—— Arminta Wallace , Irish Times

As effective an antidote to Valentine’s Day as you could find.

—— Stephanie Cross , Daily Mail

Restless, lightly mordant tale of lust and love lost.

—— Jeffrey Burke , Mail on Sunday

A subtle and painfully well-observed black comedy that will make some readers flinch with recognition.

—— Phil Baker , The Sunday Times

This forensic account of marital breakdown is breathtakingly honest… There are moments in Thomas and Mary…that will make anyone in a long-term relationship wince.

—— Alice O’Keeffe , Guardian

Parks’s observations of family life are warm and funny.

—— Anthony Cummins , Prospect

A serious and penetrating study, always drilling down to the fundamentals, of family, love and middle-aged ennui.

—— Paul Genders , The Times Literary Supplement

Witty and pleasantly asymmetric.

—— UK Press Syndication

It’s a poignant portrait, like stained glass; a rich picture made up of all the small stories that make up a marriage, that make up a life.

—— Natasha Tripney , Observer

Tim Parks is a writer with acute perception of human nature.

—— Shelia Grant , Nudge

Tim Parks, always sharp on domestic details… is good on the subtleties of office politics. And good on stormy passion, too.

—— William Leith , Evening Standard

Featured in 'Best Books for Children's and Teens 2017

—— Independent Online

This is an original and highly compelling read; heart-breaking on occasions, but ultimately uplifting

—— Teach Secondary

A heart-warming story about a space-obsessed boy's quest for answers

—— Angels & Urchins

A poignant debut

—— Event Magazine

emotional, raw, deeply moving and…funny too

—— The Scotsman

...a really rather good YA crossover ... while Khorsandi's novel tackles some pretty big subjects, it does so while making you laugh out loud

—— Metro

I really couldn’t put this book down. It’s not just for young people but if you have a teenage daughter, please make her read it.

—— The Sun

I am loving Shappi Khorsandi's Nina is Not OK, she is making me care about 'Nina' so much that I get anxious on her behalf

—— Jenny Eclair

Thematically taut and compulsively paced.

—— Edmund Gordon , Sunday Times

A very good novel of anxiety, embarrassment and also, somehow, the depths of Englishness.

—— Evening Standard

Marvellous, original and intelligent. Kunzru writes like a master storyteller... There's simply nothing [he] couldn't manage in prose

—— Literary Review

Publisher's description. Electrifying, subversive and wildly original, White Tears is a ghost story and a love story, a story about lost innocence and historical guilt. This unmissable novel penetrates the heart of a nation's darkness, encountering a suppressed history of greed, envy, revenge and exploitation, and holding a mirror up to the true nature of America today.

—— Penguin

Compulsively readable, masterly - a tour de force

—— Rachel Kushner

Riveting from the very first page, I was completely addicted... A literary thriller and a timely, unsparing excavation of the very real spectre of race in America's past and present. White Tears is proof that Kunzru is one of the finest novelists of his generation...

—— Mirza Waheed

Hari Kunzru is an incredibly versatile writer who is alert to the inequalities in the world... Powerful and complex, White Tears is a novel about abuses of wealth and power. Brilliantly orchestrated, unforgettable and devastating

—— Bernardine Evaristo

Hari Kunzru is one of our most important novelists

—— Independent on Sunday

Kunzru's engagingly wired prose and agile plotting sweep all before them

—— New Yorker

Elizabeth Strout's My Name is Lucy Barton shouldn't work, but its frail texture was a triumph of tenderness, and sent me back to her excellent Olive Kitteridge

—— Cressida Connolly , The Spectator

A rich account of a relationship between mother and daughter, the frailty of memory and the power of healing

—— Mark Damazer , New Statesman

This physically slight book packs an unexpected emotional punch

—— Simon Heffer , Daily Telegraph

A novel offering more hope

—— Daisy Goodwin , Daily Mail

My Name Is Lucy Barton intrigues and pierces with its evocative, skin-peeling back remembrances of growing up dirt-poor.

—— Ann Treneman , The Times

Masterly

—— Anna Murphy
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