New Zealand writer Mia Farlane returns with her second novel, And How Are Things With You, a darkly comic exploration of grief, suicide, friendship and the difficulty of talking honestly about how we are.
The novel follows Franny, who is absent from her French translation job, struggling with an increasingly obsessive personal project and contemplating a return from the UK to Aotearoa. Set between London and Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, the story explores serious subjects through the dry humour and sharply observed relationships that characterise Farlane's writing.
Farlane has longstanding connections with both Aotearoa and the UK. Born in New Zealand, she has spent most of her adult life in Britain and describes South London as her chosen home. She worked for more than 11 years at the National Poetry Library at Southbank Centre and completed an MA in Writing at Middlesex University. Her first novel, Footnotes to Sex, set in London and Paris, was published in the UK by Viking/Penguin.
She has also appeared at literary events at the Southbank Centre and Foyles Charing Cross Road, and is a member of both the UK Society of Authors and the New Zealand Society of Authors. And How Are Things With You brings those two strands of her life together, moving between London and Wellington in a story about a woman trying to make sense of loss, connection and where home might be.