First Aid

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On a weekend in late summer, Jo is fleeing to London with her children when her teenage daughter decides to act impulsively and leap from the train. Since Jo's husband Peter left her, she has been caring single-handedly for her three children, working in a junk shop to make ends meet. A new love affair was just beginning to give her life meaning until the man inexplicably lashed out at her. Jo's instinct was to pack hasty bags and head to her family in London. As we follow Jo's attempt to cope with her daughter's pragmatism we gradually learn what led up to the attack from her new lover, and begin to understand how desperately each of them would like to escape the ties that bind them and begin afresh. Mothers, daughters, wives, husbands, teenagers and lovers: the breadth of human experience conveyed between the covers of this short novel is astonishing.

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Janet Davey was born in 1953. Her first novel, English Correspondence, was longlisted for the 2002 Orange Prize. She lives in London.