Willy Muller has a lot of women in his life and all of them are causing him problems. His mother wants him to eat tofu. His dopey girlfriend, Penny, wants him to overcome his personal space issues, while Karen, his other, even dopier girlfriend, just wants more sex. His oldest daughter Sophie wants him to finance her husband's drug habit, but it's his youngest daughter Sadie who's giving him the biggest headache. Just before committing suicide three months ago, she sent Willy her diaries. Now, as he pores over the record of her lonely life, he finds himself troubled by stirrings of parental remorse. Might Willy, a life-long misanthrope, be ready to change his spots? Set in London, Hollywood and Mexico, Zoe Heller's novel offers a supremely witty take on love, death and the age-old battle of the sexes, not forgetting women's underwear.

'Delightfully black-hearted... Not since Flannery O'Connor has a woman writer come along who seems to so thoroughly understand the greasy inner cogs of the male psyche, especially where matters of sex are concerned'

'A truly engrossing book... told masterfully by a writer seemingly wise beyond her years'

'She has succeeded in creating a narrative that seemlessly blends the sarcastic and the sincere, the comic and the tragic. Her journalistic eye for the telling detail, her pitch-perfect ear for the lunacies of contemporary speech, her knack for capturing the subtext of hope and memory and regret that informs so many familial exchanges - all combine to make a stylish and sprited debut'