Eating Peacocks — Barbara Else

This poignant, funny novel explores the intricate influences of memory and experience, invention and deception.

'Delia's body lay flat as a piece of paper, blank, as if everything on it had scurried off over the side.'

Delia Whittborne finds herself in a hospital bed but can't recall how she got there, or even who she is. As her memory slowly returns, she realises it's not just her recent past and love-life she needs to make sense of but also her early childhood on her grandparents' farm and the barn with the peacocks strutting around outside.

As the fiesty but vulnerable Delia regains physical and psychological strength, Eating Peacocks becomes an assured and subtle exploration of male-female relationships and family life.