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Deborah Moggach

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The Carer Kindle Edition

by Deborah Moggach (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

3.7 8,860 ratings

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“[A] social comedy with some brilliant people observations about ageing and a devilish plot twist” from the author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (The Times, London).

After their elderly father’s fall, Phoebe and her brother, Robert, couldn’t be happier with his new caregiver, Mandy. She came to them with great recommendations and has given the brilliant, yet lonely, widower a new lease on life—though he is gossiping about the locals’ love affairs instead of debating science and politics.

But Phoebe and Robert soon become suspicious of Mandy—her rummaging about in their father’s papers, her strange inheritance from a former client, her habit of speaking her mind no matter the consequences. Then Robert discovers that their father has changed his will. Suddenly Mandy seems more devil than angel . . .

For the first time in years, Phoebe and Robert are bonding over something—even if it is their mutual distrust of Mandy. And what happens next will make the siblings question everything they thought they knew about their parents—and themselves.

“Moggach addresses an all too common nightmare with ruthless honesty and sublime wit—The Carer is one of the funniest novels I have read for ages.” —The Times (London)

“Unputdownable, fun and tender with characters that jump off the page. Perfection.” —Marian Keyes, international-bestselling author of Again, Rachel

“Joyous . . . a sustained satire on smug middle-class mores.” —Daily Mail

“The most endearing of humorists, Deborah Moggach casts a penetrating eye on our foibles and fantasies. Neither ageing, nor death—as The Carer so beautifully demonstrates—can resist her comic scrutiny.” —Lisa Appignanesi, award-winning author of Mad, Bad, and Sad

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Deborah Moggach OBE FRSL is an English novelist and screenwriter. She has written eighteen novels, including The Ex-Wives, Tulip Fever, These Foolish Things and Heartbreak Hotel.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0B73G7M7J
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Open Road Media (July 19, 2022)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ July 19, 2022
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 3029 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 225 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #666,375 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #583 in Sibling Fiction
- #992 in Humorous Literary Fiction
- #3,816 in General Humorous Fiction

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3.7 8,860 ratings

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3.7 out of 5

8,860 global ratings

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christine meier

Funny yet poignant

Reviewed in the United States on November 6, 2020

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Unexpected turns in the plot makes a sweet and funny story, poignant.

Reviewed in the United States on September 1, 2020

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Light and amusing at times, but there was some awkward slippage of the ‘voices’ used in the novel, the time-line became somewhat haphazard; the plot came across as a little forced towards the end. I loved the no-nonsense carer described at the start though: a thoroughly believable character, almost tragic. But all the affairs and liaisons in the novel stretched credibility. An entertaining read, with some astute observations regarding ageing and coping with loneliness.

3 people found this helpful

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roberta kennedy

The Carer is an excellent book. It is heartfelt and one gets to know the characters well.

Reviewed in the United States on October 8, 2019

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The Carer is filled with great characters and mystery. I don't want to give too much away but this is one of my favorite books that I read this year and I read many.

4 people found this helpful

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Julia Flyte

Entertaining and witty

Reviewed in the United States on August 18, 2019

Phoebe and Robert are middle aged siblings whose elderly father, a retired physicist, needs help after a fall. After two hopeless carers, Mandy seems like a “dumpy little godsend”. Their father takes to her immediately and seems to have developed a new interest in life. However gradually both Phoebe and Robert start to feel concerned that Mandy is snooping around their father’s affairs and that perhaps their inheritance is at risk.

This is a book of two halves. The first half is about Phoebe and Robert’s growing levels of concern. It’s brilliantly and wittily written, full of little observations that are reminiscent of Kate Atkinson. Moggach has a great command of pace and the reader has to work slightly to intuit parts that aren’t spelled out for us (I love that in a book). Like The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, it makes observations about how we outsource care of the elderly, but it’s not at all preachy.

Around the halfway point there is a dramatic plot shift and the book changes in tone. Earlier in the book Robert muses about marriage and how there’s been a generational shift, “a certain acceptance and compromise that was now more or less extinct” and that’s essentially what the second half is about.

While I thought this was a terrific read, I enjoyed the first half more than the second.

2 people found this helpful

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Frank Maene

Interesting turn

Reviewed in the United States on November 6, 2019

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Initially seemingly predictable story takes an interesting turn. Good background to characters tough not always th most engaging characters
Tx

One person found this helpful

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Olive Webb

Great read.

Reviewed in the United States on July 31, 2019

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Fast read with great unforeseen twists. Careful plot set in breadth of contexts . Very plausible and pleasantly droll. Recommended

3 people found this helpful

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Sascot

Repetitive yawn

Reviewed in the United States on February 22, 2020

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Inadequate story line that goes nowhere. The repetition of the concerns of Phoebe and Robert about their father, along with the hopelessness of their own lives sent me to sleep. But what is even more dire is the script. "To be honest" or "to be perfectly honest" is repeated so often that the author then thinks that she'd better move on and writes "to be frank". The glowing reports of some readers is not shared by this.

6 people found this helpful

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Alma Franklin

I enjoyed the book.

Reviewed in the United States on June 10, 2022

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However I would have liked it better on Kindle but it wasn't available.

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Mandy in Spain

Loved it!

Reviewed in Spain on July 20, 2022

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A great look at family relationships and all their complications

Julie

Letto tutto in un giorno!

Reviewed in Italy on March 21, 2021

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L'ho letto tutto in un giorno. Personaggi misti e realistici con la situazione di un padre, una volta grande e importante, ridotto ad aver bisogno di un carer personale. Il twist nella storia era ben fatto.

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JONAGOLD

Warts and all picture of the problems with ageing and the complexity of family relationships

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 3, 2020

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This book paints a 'warts and all' picture of the problems with ageing and the complexity of family relationships but for me, the hype about it being a ‘cracking social comedy’ was well off the mark.

The last thing I would have described this book as is a comedy. It tackles gritty issues with warmth and mild humour but don’t read it for the laughs because you’ll most likely be disappointed. Having said that it’s a quick and enjoyable read, and Deborah Moggach is a skilled enough writer to keep us interested even when we don’t immediately warm to any of the characters - which was a problem for me with this book. I definitely didn’t like any of the main characters at first but Deborah’s writing kept me going.

The story centres around a brother and sister, Robert and Phoebe, who have the responsibility of caring for their eighty-five-year-old father, James. Their mother Anna died a few years ago. Phoebe and Robert are both in their early sixties but still see themselves as the ‘children’ of the family and struggle with the role reversal and responsibility for their father’s welfare. Neither Robert nor Phoebe are happy with their lives. Both hold grudges against their father for spending so much of their childhood working away from home. Phoebe and Robert also blame their parents for all their shortcomings and failures as adults whilst, at the same time, happily judging the shortcomings and failings of others.

Robert is trying to write his debut book in a dilapidated shed at the bottom of the garden of the ultrachic Wimbledon home where he lives with his wife, a glamorous TV news presenter. Phoebe has never married or had children and is currently living in Wales trying to make a living as an artist.

Then along comes Mandy the carer ‘with her orange teapot and marigold gloves, their saviour from Solihull’. James seems happy with Mandy as his full-time carer and Phoebe and Robert are relieved that they can hand the responsibility over to someone else. However, they soon start to have suspicions that Mandy might not be the caring angel they first thought.

It took me a while to warm to the two main characters, Robert and Phoebe. Both came across as quite selfish and - to be honest - a bit pathetic. However, I did start to feel sorry for Robert - living in the shadow of his successful wife and at his happiest in his ramshackle shed well away from all the trappings of success. For me, Robert certainly developed most as a character and took the most positive steps towards changing his life. Having said that, Phoebe came across as a more believable character. I also liked the way Robert and Phoebe bonded towards the end of the book and started supporting each other.

I think this book is probably going to appeal more to people in their middle to later years than to people in their twenties or thirties. I’m probably the exact target audience for this book with elderly parents of my own to look after. We’ve even had our fair share of unsavoury skeletons popping out of the cupboard too, so a lot of this book deals with situations that I’m more than familiar with. Perhaps that’s why I didn’t see any humour in it? I don’t know.

For me, however, the real problem with this book is that none of the characters seemed to have a genuine problem that needed resolving. It’s a touching and authentic story but there’s no real drama in it. James had an affair but his wife doesn’t mind because she’s not interested in sex anyway; James’ affair resulted in a child but this doesn’t seem to have caused any angst and the child was raised happily; Phoebe and Robert feel resentful of the time that their father spent working/having an affair but still seem to have had a pretty good childhood by most people’s standards and were able to follow their dreams in adulthood; Anna’s rape doesn’t seem to have led to an unhappy marriage or unhappy life. None of the characters seemed really traumatised by what they had gone through.

Lastly, the extremely long letter written by Anna at the end felt out of place. Anna, although an interesting character, hadn’t featured much in the bulk of the book so for her to step in at the end for the denouement didn’t sit quite right with me. It felt pointless and grudge-bearing for her to have wanted to divulge this information only after she had died.

Even though I feel like I’ve done nothing but criticise this book I still enjoyed it and think it’s well worth reading as there are some family and societal issues here that everyone needs to think about - particularly taking responsibility for your own behaviour and the care of the elderly.

Deborah has a skilled and mature writing style and there are some good ingredients in this book but, at the end of the day, it just lacked that extra something that would have taken it from an entertaining book to a truly memorable one. I’ll definitely try another of Deborah Moggach’s books and was intrigued to see that she wrote ‘Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’ - again dealing with old age and how society values older people.

6 people found this helpful

Grace Dencker

Be good to your "Help" - you may turn out to be related!

Reviewed in Germany on July 28, 2020

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This is an enjoyable, nicely written tale, but is not the "cracking, crackling social comedy " The Times led me to expect.

Knopflerfan48

Terrific - I read it in one sitting!

Reviewed in France on June 11, 2020

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Phoebe and Robert both have their own problems, as one does when dealing with the passing years, but they also have the worry of an elderly widowed father who needs a live-in carer. Enter Mandy - opinionated, biscuit-munching, from an utterly different background, ready to love and care for their father but with more and more questions needing answers .... Who is she really, and what is the hold she has over him?
This is as beautifully written as all this author's novels, with a rwist that I never saw coming, and with many insights into the lives and personalities of all her believable cast of characters. Comedy and reality and some delicious writing - what a pleasure!

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