The Language of Others

by Clare Morrall

The world is a puzzling, sometimes frightening place for Jessica Fontaine. As a child she only finds contentment in playing the piano and wandering alone in the empty spaces of Audlands Hall, the dilapidated country house where she grows up.

Twenty-five years later, divorced, with her son still living at home, Jessica remains preoccupied by the desire to create space around her. Then her volatile ex-husband reappears, the first of several surprises that both transform Jessica's present and give her a startling new perspective on the past.

THE LANGUAGE OF OTHERS tells the absorbing story of a woman who spends much of her life feeling that she is out of step with the real world, until she discovers why. Related with humour and compassion, it offers a fresh, illuminating insight into what it means to be normal.

(From Publisher).

Clare Morrall's first novel, Astonishing Splashes of Colour, was published by Tindal Street Press in 2003 and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. She has since published two more novels: NATURAL FLIGHTS OF THE HUMAN MIND and THE LANGUAGE OF OTHERS. Born in Exeter, she now lives in Birmingham where she works as a music teacher, and has two grown-up children.