Lady in the Van
by Bennett, Alan
- Used
- Good
- Paperback
- Condition
- Good
- ISBN 10
- 0573112665
- ISBN 13
- 9780573112669
- Seller
-
Seattle, Washington, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
Samuel French Ltd, 2006. Paperback. Good. Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less.Shelf and handling wear to cover and binding, with general signs of previous use. Published in Great Britain. No extraneous markings. All pages are intact and binding is strong. Secure packaging for safe delivery.Dust jacket quality is not guaranteed.
Reviews
On Mar 13 2017, a reader said:
The Lady in the Van is a true story by British author, Alan Bennett. Essentially, it is an account of his interactions, over some twenty years, with the elderly Miss Shepherd, a homeless woman whose van was parked, at first in his street opposite his house, then later, in his front garden. Not until after she died, did Bennett learn very much at all about this secretive, opinionated, demanding old lady.
Entries often read thus: "April 1989. A staple of Miss S.'s shopping list these days is sherbet lemons. I have a stock of them in the house, but she insists I invest in yet more so that a perpetual supply of sherbet lemons may never be in doubt. 'I'm on them now. I don't want to have to go off them.' I asked her if she would like a cup of coffee. 'Well, I wouldn't want you to go to all that trouble. I'll just have half a cup.'"
It was after her death that Bennett finally ventured inside the van: "…I realised I had to grit my teeth (or hold my nose) and go through Miss Shepherd's possessions.
To do the job properly would have required a team of archaeologists. Every surface was covered in layers of old clothes, frocks, blankets and accumulated papers, some of them undisturbed for years, and all lying under a crust of ancient talcum powder. Sprinkled impartially over wet slippers, used incontinence pads and half-eaten tins of baked beans, it was of a virulence that supplemented rather than obliterated the distinctive odour of the van. The narrow aisle between the two banks of seats where Miss Shepherd had knelt, prayed and slept was trodden six inches deep in sodden debris, on which lay a top dressing of old food, Mr Kipling cakes, wrinkled apples, rotten oranges and everywhere batteries – batteries loose, batteries in packets, batteries that had split and oozed black gum on to the prehistoric sponge cakes and ubiquitous sherbet lemons that they lay among"
The cover of this edition shows Maggie Smith as she portrayed Miss Shepherd in the movie of the same title, and also has a postscript written in 1994. Very entertaining.
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Details
- Bookseller
- ThriftBooks (US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 1328452457
- Title
- Lady in the Van
- Author
- Bennett, Alan
- Format/Binding
- Paperback
- Book Condition
- Used - Good
- Quantity Available
- 1
- ISBN 10
- 0573112665
- ISBN 13
- 9780573112669
- Publisher
- Samuel French Ltd
- Place of Publication
- London, United Kingdom
- Date Published
- 2006
Terms of Sale
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