Crocodile Soup

Gert Hardcastle is thirty-something and unlucky in love. She is also estranged from her mother. As <em>Crocodile Soup</em> opens she thinks she has found the One -- the enigmatic Eva who serves coffee at the cafeteria in the museum where Gert works as a curator cataloging Egyptian artifacts. As Gert embarks on her hilarious and poignant pursuit of Eva she looks back on her eccentric childhood through a series of vivid and surreal flashbacks: her obsessive twin Frank with whom she communicates telepathically; her father George who vanished to Africa to salvage the family crocodile farm; her vain neglectful mother Jean; and the family ghost -- a Victorian poet who haunts the attic.</p>In a narrative studded with relentless humor and giddy self-deprecation Julia Darling introduces an endearing cast of characters whose shared and wayward search for love is irresistible.</p>