An ordinary family doing ordinary things, going through life in an ordinary way and coping with ordinary problems. Not very exciting to start with.After the publication of Salambo, Gustave Flaubert was criticised for his choices of plot and characters : exotic princesses, golden palaces set in 3rd century B.C. He replied that, if he wanted to, he could write a novel on a patch of cabbages, and that, in fact, he had already done so with Madame Bovary.So, why did Sue Gee's own patch of cabbages keep me on the edge of my seat, as if it had been a thriller ?I will hazard a guess : pick any human being at random in a crowd, and you will find that he or she has gone through very painful moments in life ; but it takes talent to turn this ordinary life into a novel. Sue Gee's style is, as usual, wonderful, musical, poetic and sensitive. As with her short stories, the atmosphere she creates is one of unrelenting sadness. Nothing oppressive of nightmarish : just the constant presence of an every day sense of failure. The dusty taste of life itself.