Oh Dear Silvia by Dawn French

One silent woman holds many untold stories

Fair to Good Condition – moderate cover wear with page-edge tanning.

Silvia Shute lies unconscious in a hospital room after a fall from a balcony. Unable to answer, explain or object, she receives a procession of visitors who bring memories, grudges, confessions and sharply different versions of the woman they believe they know. Her ex-husband, children, sister, cleaner and devoted nurse each reveal pieces of Silvia’s life, gradually exposing family fractures, hidden tenderness and secrets that have shaped them all. Dawn French balances comedy with grief as apparently ordinary conversations gather emotional weight and the truth behind Silvia’s condition slowly emerges. Told through the voices around her bedside, Oh Dear Silvia is a funny, compassionate and sometimes painful novel about estrangement, forgiveness and the distance between a person’s private self and the many identities created by those who love—or resent—them.