Lucy White can’t quite believe what’s happened to her happy, ordinary life. Ending up homeless – not to mention husbandless - has come as an almighty shock. All she wants to do is lie low for a while, but when she arrives in a quiet street in South London she’s in for a surprise.
The residents of Farewell Square are anything but quiet. There’s a housewife with a secret that needs to be shared, a publicist whose behaviour outside office hours would shock his clients and an artist who can’t seem to control her lodgers. They’re as intrigued by Lucy as she is by them, and as she’s drawn into their midst, she realises that life can be kind as well as cruel. And that no one has to be lonely if they don’t want to be.
- Why do you think Ulrika puts everything at risk with her behaviour at the school? Do you think she is fully aware of the consequences of what could happen if everything came out in the open?
- Friends or family? Which is more important? And do you think that one can ever be a complete substitute for the other?
- If Archie and Stephen had still been alive do you think that Bill and Helen would have had another baby? What do you think of the couples’ methods of coping with their sons’ deaths?
- Does Pauline McLynn’s other career as an actress make you think about this book any differently? Do you think it could easily be turned into a television programme or film?
- “There’s more than enough drama in Farewell Square” Do you think that any of these situations could really happen or that anyone would really behave like this in real-life? Or is that part of what makes this novel what it is – the idea of escapism?
- How well do you think the novel works in terms of using humour to deal with tragic and difficult situations?
- Are there other books that you could compare this to? Do you like the way in which the book focuses on all of the characters’ individual stories or would you rather it had told say just Lucy’s story or just Bill and Helen’s?
- Secrets seem to be everywhere within the novel – from Lucy living in her car, to Tony’s true sexuality to Helen’s guilt over the death of her sons. Do you think that everyone has secrets? Discuss how the novel might have worked if these secrets had stayed a secret.
- If the stories of these characters’ lives didn’t finish at the end of the book what do you think might have gone on to happen to each of them?
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Pauline McLynn grew up in Galway, and first started acting while studying history of art at Trinity College, Dublin.
She shot to fame playing the inimitable Mrs Doyle in Father Ted, and has appeared in numerous other film, television and stage roles. She divides her time between London and Dublin where she lives with her husband. |
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OTHER BOOKS BY PAULINE McLYNN |
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