Does this Joan really exist? Why did Eliza's husband leave her? Why do people in her neighborhood avoid her or treat her very delicately? Is she mad? Did Gardam lose the plot for a while there? We do start to see that nothing is quite what it seems. I enjoyed the letters but they started to increase in length till they didn't really seem like letters anymore but became more of a narrative. Just a nosy and annoying neighbor who everyone secretly dislikes. Eliza, funnily enough reminded me so much of Mrs.Bucket from that old British series, Keeping up Appearances. Gardam's writing has shades of Barbara Pym but she's definitely darker and more wicked. Of course Eliza never gets any replies to her letters but there are a few oddball characters who visit her bearing exotic gifts from Joan. Eliza imagines herself to be a close friend of Joan though actually they never even spoke to one another when they were neighbors.

Winner of the Whitbread award for 1991, the book consists of letters written by Eliza Peabody, a housewife in her fifties to her neighbor Joan who has recently abandoned her family to go on a worldwide adventure. Algeria, Angola, Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Benin, Bermuda, Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei Darussalam, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Cape Verde Islands, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, Colombia, Comoros, Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Ecuador, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), Gabon Republic, Gambia, Germany, Ghana, Greenland, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Iraq, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Laos, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Macau, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mayotte, Mexico, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, New Zealand, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Saint Helena, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Somalia, South Africa, Suriname, Swaziland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Vietnam, Virgin Islands (U.S.Queen of the Tambourine is the first novel I've read by Jane Gardam and though I'm impressed by her style and her writing, I wouldn't exactly call this an enjoyable read.

Jane gardam the queen of the tambourine