The English Harem

by Anthony Mc Carten (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2002

  $3.25

  Hilarious, provoking, vivid story of food, love, menus and IslamThe English Harem is the story of Tracy Pringle who begins the book daydreaming at the checkout till of Sainsbury's. Sacked suddenly for watching an old lady shop lift she tries her luck as a waitress at a Persian restaurant. Her father thinks she's turned to prostitution and Sam, the restaurant owner is bewildered by the arrival of the unsuitably dressed Miss Pringle at his establishment. But Sam has problems of his own, reconciling his vegetarianism with his family's tradition of working in the butcher trade in Iran. The longer Tracy works the more involved she gets with Sam, his two wives and the complicated menu...McCarten shows the same flair for dialogue and a brilliant sense of place (a scene where Tracy and Sam try and use the lift in her council block is priceless). With the setting being London this has possibly more commercial potential in the UK.

• Used

  Paperback
  2008

  $3.25

  In this hilarious, provocative and highly topical story of food, love and Islam, Anthony McCarten exposes the flaws inherent to our multicultural society, and explores the nature of racism from a startlingly original angle.Supermarket checkout girl Tracy Pringle has a very lively imagination indeed. In front of her, as she blip-blips herself into a daydream, walk past not boring housewives with screaming children or tired office clerks, but the likes of Lord Byron, Lawrence of Arabia and Princess Leia. It comes as no surprise, then, that she turns a blind eye when Her Majesty herself pops a packet of Mr Kipling's Bakewell tarts into her handbag without paying. Obviously, the management sees it differently, and Tracy is given the sack on the spot and forced to find herself another job. But nothing can prepare her for the new life that awaits her at the Taste of Persia restaurant, where she is flung headlong into a clash of cultures, languages, dinner plates, religions and a rather tricky domestic arrangement...