More About Pixie

Sylvia Trevor has spent four long weeks watching the same dust settle on her water-bed, counting the minutes until she might see another human face. Recovering from a serious illness in a house ruled by a strict aunt, with her father tea-planting far away in Ceylon, she exists in a prison of quiet desperation, trapped by her weak body, her weaker social options, and the crushing monotony of Victorian convalescence. Every small irritant becomes enormous: the nurse who dusts the mantelpiece wrong, the vase that blocks her view of her father's portrait. Then Bridgie O'Shaughnessy arrives, and everything shifts. Spontaneous, warm, utterly unlike the careful world Sylvia has been forced to inhabit, Bridgie brings with her the promise of escape, not just from this sickroom, but from the loneliness that has settled into Sylvia's bones. This is a novel about the enormous smallness of illness, the way time stretches when you're trapped, and the almost terrifying hope that a new friend can bring when you've forgotten what joy feels like.