Old Baggage

As featured on BBC Radio 4 Good Reads

''The work of a novelist in her prime'' Daily Telegraph
''Wise and witty'' Sarah Hughes, Observer
''Essential . . . Evans is a brilliant storyteller'' Stylist
''A timely, bittersweet comic novel'' Guardian
''A thoughtful, funny, companionable novel'' Sunday Times
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What do you do next, after you''ve changed the world?

It is 1928. Matilda Simpkin, rooting through a cupboard, comes across a small wooden club - an old possession of hers, unseen for more than a decade.

Mattie is a woman with a thrilling past and a chafingly uneventful present. During the Women''s Suffrage Campaign she was a militant. Jailed five times, she marched, sang, gave speeches, smashed windows and heckled Winston Churchill, and nothing - nothing - since then has had the same depth, the same excitement.

Now in middle age, she is still looking for a fresh mould into which to pour her energies. Giving the wooden club a thoughtful twirl, she is struck by an idea - but what starts as a brilliantly idealistic plan is derailed by a connection with Mattie''s militant past, one which begins to threaten every principle that she stands for.

Old Baggage is a funny and bittersweet portrait of a woman who has never, never given up the fight.