My Driver
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Diana Melly
‘Exceptionally interesting and brave ... A wonderful book, for its boldness and vigour, and for its piercing honesty.’
Claire Tomalin
‘A living and unusual book: part social history, part family history and part autobiography. Observant, honest and sensitively-written ... it demands to be read. ’
Michael Holroyd
‘My Animal Life is full of riches. [Maggie Gee] offers balanced and wise insights into family and friendship, motherhood and marriage, class and race. Highly recommended for all aspiring writers.’
Bernardine Evaristo
Praise for My Driver
‘Brilliantly negotiates the explosive racial territory of the British abroad with feeling, observation, humour and art.’
Elaine Showalter, Guardian, Books of the Year
‘A fast-moving, energetic, constantly surprising book, which takes the reader on a big emotional journey: a book that makes you laugh when it doesn’t make you flinch.’
Hilary Mantel
‘My Driver transcends ... cliched political correctness. This is a writer who clearly knows her way through central Africa’s alphabet soup of rebel groups, and who has a clear-eyed grasp of the scramble for money and power that drives the region’s wars ... Gee’s novel is an admirable success.’
Matthew Green, Financial Times
‘Executed with a lovely, light touch ... an immensely enjoyable novel. Gee’s control of tone is supremely artful.’
Lionel Shriver, Daily Telegraph
‘Mary is a rare fully-fleshed African character in a book by a white European novelist. It’s the struggle that matters to Gee, the struggle to .. imagine someone unlike ourselves, to imagine how they might imagine us, and how we might all share a single world ... sparky and funny and terrifically entertaining.’
Patrick Ness, Guardian
‘Witty and original ... There’s no one like Maggie Gee when it comes to pointing out the absurdities of the middle classes...’
Kate Saunders, The Times
‘Gee’s gifts as a writer truly inspire me. Her humor, her insight into people, her ability to shape-shift and make every character real and flawed but also lovable ... Just brilliant ...’
Hillary Jordan
‘Cunningly constructed and witty ... touchingly funny.’
Nick Rennison, Sunday Times