Gee, Sue

(British, 1947– )

Gee spent her childhood on a Devon farm and in rural Leicestershire. She has worked in publishing, but now writes and teaches (writing, at Middlesex University) as a freelance. Begin with The Hours of the Night (1996), the romantic and moving story of mother (Phoebe, coldly undemonstrative, obsessed by her garden) and daughter (Gillian, poet, loner, suddenly discovering love) in a little village on the Welsh borders. The Welsh setting is vivid and integral to the story, and the uneasy relationship between the women is beautifully drawn. All Gee's characters here have to face up to loss of differing kinds. Letters from Prague (1994) follows another mother, Harriet, and her 10-year-old daughter as they travel to Prague in search of Harriet's first love, lost in 1968 when the Russian tanks crossed the border.

Elizabeth Buchan, Penelope Fitzgerald. See ROMANCE  JR