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This Is Yesterday
On sale
7th November 2019
Price: £14.99
‘This Is Yesterday is a song for the outsiders, a hymn to the suburban misfits. Here the tensions and oddness of lower-middle class family life are explored in poetic detail . . . A voice of hope for those who boldly follow their own creative path from adolescence to middle age’ Benjamin Myers, author of The Offing
Alone and adrift in London, Peach is heading into her mid-forties with nothing to show for her youthful promise but a stalled art career and the stopgap job in a Mayfair gallery that she’s somehow been doing for a decade.
She is too smart and independent to believe her unhappiness will be cured by a relationship and a baby, too lonely to break her cycle of drunken hook ups and nervous breakdowns. She is too young to feel this tired, and far too old to feel this lost.
When Peach is woken one night with news that her father, who has Alzheimer’s disease, is in intensive care, she can no longer outrun the summer of secrets and sexual awakenings that augured twenty-five years of estrangement from her family. Now, as they all gather in the hospital, past and present collide, forcing Peach to confront the consequences of her actions – and inactions – throughout the years.
This Is Yesterday is a story of a woman’s relationship with her art, her body and desires, her memories, herself. It is a story of beginning, ending and becoming.
Alone and adrift in London, Peach is heading into her mid-forties with nothing to show for her youthful promise but a stalled art career and the stopgap job in a Mayfair gallery that she’s somehow been doing for a decade.
She is too smart and independent to believe her unhappiness will be cured by a relationship and a baby, too lonely to break her cycle of drunken hook ups and nervous breakdowns. She is too young to feel this tired, and far too old to feel this lost.
When Peach is woken one night with news that her father, who has Alzheimer’s disease, is in intensive care, she can no longer outrun the summer of secrets and sexual awakenings that augured twenty-five years of estrangement from her family. Now, as they all gather in the hospital, past and present collide, forcing Peach to confront the consequences of her actions – and inactions – throughout the years.
This Is Yesterday is a story of a woman’s relationship with her art, her body and desires, her memories, herself. It is a story of beginning, ending and becoming.
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Reviews
Ruane brings an earthy immediacy to bear on her exploration of the long-simmering tensions that warp the middle-class Lewis family . . . a tale told with passion and honesty
Sex and desire are complicated, and Ruane captures the how and why of that perfectly . . . Ruane's Peach is someone you'll want to shake and cuddle, sometimes simultaneously, for This is Yesterday conveys the messiness of real life - as well as its poignancy
Stunningly written debut . . . The real subject of this enjoyably disturbing book is being a hormonal school-leaver in a dead-end town who feels all the real action is elsewhere
'This Is Yesterday is a song for the outsiders, a hymn to the suburban misfits. Here the tensions and oddness of lower-middle class family life are explored in poetic detail. Inhabited by weak men and strong women, it is shot through with rumination and echoes with regret, yet offers a voice of hope for those who boldly follow their own creative path from adolescence to middle age'
This darkly funny book is very insightful about family dynamics and how small choices can leave us far from where we meant to be
Mind-blowingly masterful with words . . . This Is Yesterday jangled my insides around completely. Rose Ruane is truly something else