The Black Dress

This is the first Deborah Moggach book I've read and I'm not in a rush to try another.

From the description on the cover I expected a darkly comic tale about a newly single septuagenarian's funeral crashing antics. Whilst this does feature somewhat in the first half of the novel, the latter half loses focus completely. Pru's husband has left her with little in the way of explanation - other than needing to start his "spiritual journey". She finds the black dress in a charity shop. When she accidentally attends the wrong funeral, this gives her the idea to go to others and seek out grieving widows. I imagined numerous tales of crazy antics and narrow escapes but unfortunately this was not the case.

The second half of the book lacked a central thread. The storyline was jumbled to say the least - we learned a lot about Pru's past, her sex life, there were a couple of murders thrown in and the pandemic also featured. On a few occasions narrative had clearly been missed and was explained away by Pru "I didn't tell you about Greg... I didn't know quite where to fit it in..." Perhaps this was a way for the author to twist the tale - but it didn't work for me.

There was not a single character in this book that I liked. Pru is whiny, dependant on others for everything from retuning her car radio to self esteem and personal identity. Azra is spikey and selfish without a care for how her actions effect others. Greg is so wrapped up in his new life with little regard to his former wife and their grown up children. And as for the men that Pru meets in her quest for a new companion ...let's not go there!

The author also has a bizarre dislike for the West Midlands!?! "My friend Tabitha gatecrashes weddings...Sod all else to do in Kidderminster." And "You'd brought us a quiche. A quiche. We'd never seen one of those, we were from Dudley." Neither of these anecdotes add anything to the story and in my opinion they discredit the author.

This book felt rushed - maybe the author had a deadline to meet? The ending was strange and unsatisfactory - other than the relief that I had finally finished! I would find it difficult to recommend this book to others.

Our book club were given ARCs in exchange for honest reviews.

Pru is 70 years old and looking forward to a happy life with husband Gregg in their little cottage in Dorset. Inexplicably, out of the blue, Greg leaves her and the idlyllic life she had planned is in tatters. She descends into a depression and starts questioning her life, and not finding any satisfactory answers.

She decides to rebuild her life and buys a little black dress that she uses to attend funerals of complete strangers, hoping to meet a man. She admits herself that this is an unorthodox thing to do but it allows her to start living life again and creates situations that provide laugh out loud moments (even if darkly comical), but also sad and poignant actions associated with loss and grief.
If I’m honest I didn’t warm to the lead female characters Pru and Azra although they are well described. Despite this I did enjoy reading the book and found it a real page turner due to the many plot twists and turns and shocking revelations!

I did find the ending problematic, both a positive and negative reaction! Certain aspects of the story became unrealistic, but the final revelation was superb and it took me completely by surprise. I wasn’t excepting that!
There are mixed reviews on here, but I say read the book and make up your own mind!

I was looking forward to this book as it sounded so good. However, it did not live to my expectations. I thought there would be more funeral related funny stories. The 'black dress' did not feature much. None of the characters were particularly likeable, especially Pru.
There were lots of unexpected twists and turns, at time shocking and very far fetched. The twist at the end I didn't see coming at all!
I found the first part of the book quite funny and I felt empathy for Pru but as the novel unfolds we see her dark side. I found some of her experiences quite bizarre and unbelievable. I'm in the same age bracket as Pru and found the things she got up to unconvincing.

The Black Dress is definitely a book of two halves! The first act lives up to the blurb on the back – a darkly witty account of a desperately sad older woman who suddenly finds herself alone and in need of some human interaction. I felt that these humorous funeral visits could have carried on throughout the novel as I was enjoying reading the different people Prudence met and the interesting situations she found herself in. Halfway through the book takes a dramatic turn and the second act becomes quite dark and shocking with some definite talk about moments! It is difficult to review without giving away some major spoilers, but I found Prudence a fascinating narrator as she keeps on surprising the reader with her antics. There were a few aspects of the story which I felt didn’t need to be there, however I sped through this over two days and think this is a great book to dissect with a book group.