Ellman, Lucy

(US, 1956– )

Lucy Ellman was born in Illinois, moving to England at the age of 13. She studied art before writing her first novel, Sweet Desserts (1988). The book is a very funny, angst-ridden cry from the narrator, Suzy Schwarz, about her relationship with her sister, her husband, her dying father, and food. The narrative is interrupted by extracts from her diary, radio advice shows, and the like. Varying Degrees of Hopelessness (1991) is also experimental. In this novel the heroine Isabel is studying art and enjoying a wholly imaginary love-life. As funny and spiky as the narrative is, it reveals the bleakness of the heroine's world. Man or Mango?: A Lament (1998) has as its heroine Eloise, also man-hungry, and concerns her relationship with an ex-lover, George, an Anglophobe.

Sylvia Plath, Esther Freud  SA