The Days of Judy B

On paper, Judy B is a successful journalist, the author of a column in a Sunday newspaper, in which she documents the life of a fabulously social young professional. In reality, she is a friendless living alone in Bethnal Green, teetering on the edge of obesity, wallowing in hard liquor and just about sustaining herself through a well-informed obsession with the golden age of musical theatre. Things have to change, and soon. Bracing herself to emerge from beneath her washed-out, single duvet, she gives herself 17 weeks in which to conduct the Great Overhaul, 17 weeks in which she can burst out into the functioning world in a flurry of men, wine, and song…A stunningly accomplished debut from Rose Heiney, The Days of Judy B is clever, touching, disturbingly funny – a book for anyone who has ever felt their life careering out of control, it will take you from laughter to tears and back again via the dark places of the soul where fear and insecurity lurk.