The Black Dress

Read with Gloucester Book Club free from the publisher.

Ageing, loneliness, second chances and love in later life are all covered in this amusing and entertaining novel. At 69 Pru finds herself alone after her husband decides to leave her after their long marriage. She sinks into a depression and buys a black dress from a charity shop to wear to strangers’ funerals in the hope of meeting a new man, supported by her best friend Azra.

At the start it’s easy to relate to Pru’s very sad situation and to feel a great deal of empathy for her. But as the novel unfolds we begin to see her dark side and question if she is in fact a reliable narrator. It starts to make sense why her children are living abroad and never seem to want to visit her.

Deborah Moggach’s writing absolutely flows and perfectly captures the underlying desperation in Pru’s loneliness and her behaviours. It made me think and feel in new ways. At times quite shocking, this story is immensely readable, I don’t think I’ve raced through a novel so fast in a long time. Highly recommend.

I read this book with Gloucester Book club. It sounded an interesting premise, the protagonist's husband has a mid-life crisis and leaves her, she spots a black dress in a charity shop window, buys it and goes to funerals to meet new widowers. It sounds like chick lit (or rather hen lit as she is 70), and is a page turner. But then halfway through the book it seems like the author runs out of steam, so decides to throw in murder and lesbian sex to jazz it up a bit. Moggach has always written interesting themes, particularly To Have and To Hold, and the novel which became The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, but doesn't quite pull it off with this latest book.