THE BESTSELLING NOVEL BY NELL DUNN
‘Her art is ignited by voice . . . as you hear it, is unquestionable’ ALI SMITH, GUARDIAN
‘Touching, truthful and fresh’ MARGARET DRABBLE
‘Nell Dunn’s hilarious, heartbreaking Poor Cow, about a single mother in sixties London’ PARIS REVIEW
Joy – also called Blossom, Sunshine and Blondie by the men in her life – walks down Fulham Broadway carrying her week-old baby, Jonny. She is twenty-one with bleached hair, high suede shoes and a head full of dreams. Her husband Tom is a thief and on the proceeds of a job they move to a luxury flat – ‘the world was our oyster and we chose Ruislip’. Then Tom is sent to prison, leaving Joy and Jonny to move in with Auntie Emm. This is Joy’s story: an exuberant, pink-lipsticked, tale of London life, love and young motherhood in the sixties . . .
Poor Cow explores the life of a young working-class girl in the swinging sixties as she navigates the consequences of her decisions.
Nell Dunn’s 1967 novel was also made into a film directed by Ken Loach.
‘Her art is ignited by voice . . . as you hear it, is unquestionable’ ALI SMITH, GUARDIAN
‘Touching, truthful and fresh’ MARGARET DRABBLE
‘Nell Dunn’s hilarious, heartbreaking Poor Cow, about a single mother in sixties London’ PARIS REVIEW
Joy – also called Blossom, Sunshine and Blondie by the men in her life – walks down Fulham Broadway carrying her week-old baby, Jonny. She is twenty-one with bleached hair, high suede shoes and a head full of dreams. Her husband Tom is a thief and on the proceeds of a job they move to a luxury flat – ‘the world was our oyster and we chose Ruislip’. Then Tom is sent to prison, leaving Joy and Jonny to move in with Auntie Emm. This is Joy’s story: an exuberant, pink-lipsticked, tale of London life, love and young motherhood in the sixties . . .
Poor Cow explores the life of a young working-class girl in the swinging sixties as she navigates the consequences of her decisions.
Nell Dunn’s 1967 novel was also made into a film directed by Ken Loach.
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Reviews
Her art is ignited by voice, especially by voice more usually given no societal, literary or aesthetic power or space but whose authority, as you hear it, is unquestionable
Nell Dunn's hilarious, heartbreaking Poor Cow, about a single mother in sixties London
Touching, truthful and fresh . . . written with an unselfconscious elegance that conceals its craft . . . A tour de force
It was Nell's interest in the women of the working class that made her work truly radical
