In prose vibrant and witty, The Queen of the Tambourine is a darkly comic novel about a smart, sensitive, and wildly imaginative woman who loses and then regains control over her life. Once the proverbial good woman behind a highly successful husband, Eliza Peabody now finds herself abandoned and isolated in her prosperous London neighborhood. She will have to reach new depths before discovering a path back to health and serenity.Winner of the Whitbread Award for Fiction, this is a moving story of a woman's confrontation with the often hard realities of the golden years by the beloved author of Old Filth.