The Pumpkin Eater

Penelope Mortimer's classic novel about a woman falling apart in 1960s London, now a Radio 4 adaptation

'Peter, Peter, Pumpkin eater
Had a wife and couldn't keep her...'

In this extraordinary, semi-autobiographical novel, Penelope Mortimer depicts a married woman's breakdown in 1960s London. With three husbands in her past, one in her present and a numberless army of children, Mrs Armitage is astonished to find herself collapsing one day in Harrods. Strange, unsettling and shot through with black comedy, this is a moving account of one woman's realisation that marriage and family life may not, after all, offer all the answers to the problems of living.