Higher Ed
A Novel
In her most powerful and resonant novel to date, the acclaimed writer Tessa McWatt explores the ways in which people find love in desperately uncertain times.
Against a backdrop of 21st-century east London, where cuts and job crunches and unemployment are ugly, unrelenting realities, three very different love stories bloom. Francine, a university administrator who firmly believes that she is unattractive and unloveable, is unhinged after witnessing a tragic road accident. Cracked open, she is also on the verge of realizing that she is worth something to someone. Meanwhile Robin, a young film prof who Francine has lusted after from afar, is awoken to beauty in the form of the young Polish waitress in his local café, who cannot believe…