Virginia Woolf in Manhattan

“Hang on to your hats, it’s a joy”, Jane Gardam, author of Old Filth


'I love the work of Maggie Gee: wickedly smart, funny and fearless, plus that rarest of all things, genuinely surprising. Read her.' Patrick Ness


'Hang on to your hats, it's a joy.' Jane Gardam, author of Old Filth


`I love the work of Maggie Gee: wickedly smart, funny and fearless, plus that rarest of all things, genuinely surprising. Read her.' Patrick Ness



'A remarkable feat … Gee's strength as a writer is to allow the fantastical and plausible to coexist. … [She] has made Woolf abundantly human once more in this exhilarating novel, with its passages of lyrical beauty that celebrate our material existence' --Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain

Praise for Maggie Gee's Writing
‘A wise and beautiful book about what it feels like to be alive.’ Zadie Smith

‘Worldly, witty, enjoyable, impressive.’ Doris Lessing

‘Fast-moving, energetic, constantly surprising’ Hilary Mantel

‘Maggie Gee has never written better’ Rose Tremain

Excellent … Exciting stuff.’ Fay Weldon

‘A tour de force – brilliantly structured, surprising, humane, and suspenseful’ Elaine Showalter

‘Brilliant … just brilliant … deserves to be published in every language’ Hillary Jordan

‘Gripping, original and highly entertaining – Maggie Gee at her superb best.’ J G Ballard
‘So rich it is almost aromatic … an impressive and important novel.’ Nigella Lawson

‘Outstanding … tender, sexy and alarming.’ Jim Crace


‘Audacious, playful and dazzlingly written’ The Herald


‘Wickedly funny … contains lines that sparkle’ Sunday Telegraph


‘This giddily playful novel is cunning what if … A gloriously funny, fleet-footed novel.’ Metro Best Summer Reads)


‘A witty book ... It’s got everything in a novel that I really like’ Jacqueline Wilson’s Six Best Books, Express


‘Dazzling … alternately lyrical and austere … unbearably touching.’ The Observer

‘For all its passion and intricacy, is also a very funny book . . . rewarding . . . carefully written, using language echoing the water that ebbs and flows, and eventually floods the pages.' TLS

‘Sublimely funny and infinitely subtle, pure delight.’ Daily Telegraph


‘Energetic and beguiling.’ Sunday Telegraph


‘Up there with Orwell and Huxley.’ Jeremy Paxman BBC


‘Maggie Gee is one of our most ambitious and challenging novelists.’ Sunday Times


‘A fantastic book.’ Mariella Frostrup BBC


‘She writes elegantly, unsentimentally, expertly.’ The Independent


This beautifully observed, intelligent and moving novel is one of those rare things – a small, carefully wrapped surprise that gets better and better with the unravelling.’ The Scotsman


‘A moving, funny, engrossing book.’ The Observer


‘A rattling good page-turning yarn.’ George Melly


‘Mordantly witty, unsparing, politically savvy, a beautifully clear and bracing vision.’ TLS

‘One of the year’s finest novels.’ Literary Review

‘Compulsively readable.’ The Guardian

‘Astonishing … beautifully written.’ Big Issue

‘A transcendent work.’ Daily Telegraph

‘Intensely touching.’ Financial Times


This beautifully observed, intelligent and moving novel is one of those rare things – a small, carefully wrapped surprise that gets better and better with the unravelling.’ The Scotsman


‘Maggie Gee is a superb Elegant, humorous and surprising, this is a classy performance.’ The Times

‘A moving, funny, engrossing book.’ The Observer


‘A remarkable and ambitious book, a tribute to Maggie Gee’s imaginative power.’ Literary Review


‘The most exhilarating novel I’ve read all year.’ Scotland on Sunday


‘Maggie Gee’s immense talent catches passion on the wing … a romance of a truth and depth that’s never without humour.’ Mail on Sunday


'Most of the creative re-imaginings that critics see as Mrs Dalloway's literary progeny are by male writers, who retell the novel through the eyes and stories of men...An exception is Maggie Gee's enchanting Virginia Woolf in Manhattan, reimagining Woolf as a timeless, global inspiration for women.' Elaine Showalter

In a fantastical feminist adventure, three generations of women—including Virginia Woolf, back from the grave—travel the world in pursuit of new opportunities.

“Suddenly there’s time again; & I’m in it,” declares Woolf, the internationally acclaimed literary modernist who committed suicide in 1941, now resurrected in 21st-century New York City due to a thunderstorm and the mental focus of another author and critic, Angela Lamb, who travels from London to the U.S. and then Istanbul to deliver a paper at a Woolf conference. Distinguished British author Gee (My Animal Life, 2011, etc.) doesn’t worry too much about the questions arising from her icon’s peculiar comeback; she just breezes forward, rather like the revivified Virginia herself, who becomes increasingly eager to embrace her second chance at life. First published in Britain in 2014, the novel is presented in overlapping conversations as Angela and Virginia explore their sudden relationship, which is variously tetchy, competitive, caring, and celebratory. Angela’s marriage to explorer Edward is failing, and she has parked her beloved teenage daughter, Gerda, at a boarding school in England for safekeeping during her own absence. But Gerda is being bullied at the school and decides to embark on a trip, too, to find her mother and possibly restore her parents’ relationship. Virginia and Angela, meanwhile, enjoy New York, buying clothes, drinking at the Algonquin, and visiting the Statue of Liberty, while bickering over writing, privilege, time passing, and the problems of the book business. Moving on to Istanbul, the novel’s conversations and speculations intensify, as do its longueurs and intermittent feel of a travelogue. But the delivery of Angela’s conference paper, a rousing paean to Woolf, writing, and seizing the day, heralds a moving conclusion.

An imaginative love letter to a literary hero is given vitality, depth, and charm through the playful intelligence of its seasoned author.