Vinegar Girl The Taming of the Shrew Retold Synopsis
'You can't get around Kate Battista as easily as all that'. Kate Battista is feeling stuck. How did she end up running house and home for her eccentric scientist father and uppity, pretty younger sister Bunny? Plus, she's always in trouble at work - her pre-school charges adore her, but the adults don't always appreciate her unusual opinions and forthright manner. Dr Battista has other problems. After years out in the academic wilderness, he is on the verge of a breakthrough. His research could help millions. There's only one problem: his brilliant young lab assistant, Pyotr, is about to be deported. And without Pyotr...When Dr Battista cooks up an outrageous plan that will enable Pyotr to stay in the country, he's relying - as usual - on Kate to help him. Kate is furious: this time he's really asking too much. But will she be able to resist the two men's touchingly ludicrous campaign to win her round? Anne Tyler's retelling of The Taming of the Shrew asks whether a thoroughly modern, independent woman like Kate would ever sacrifice herself for a man. The answer is as individual, off-beat and funny as Kate herself.
'I loved Kate and Pyotr and the way they discover the oversized, tender, irreverent relationship that fits them...It is joyful.' Rachel Joyce
'Read her books and she can actually change your view, change how you see the world.' Judy Finigan, Mail on Sunday
'Tyler writes with an apparent effortlessness which conceals great art' Helen Dunmore, Stylist
'Tyler's sentences are wholly hers, instantly recognisable and impossible to duplicate' Hanya Yanigihara, Observer
'A new novel from Tyler is always a treat' Daily Mail
Author
About Anne Tyler
Anne Tyler was born in Minneapolis in 1941 but grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. She graduated at nineteen from Duke University and went on to do graduate work in Russian studies at Columbia University. This is Anne Tyler’s sixteenth novel; her eleventh, Breathing Lessons, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1988. She is a member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. She lives in Baltimore. In 2012 Anne Tyler was the winner of the Sunday Times Award for Literary Excellence.