A laugh-out-loud love story with big ideas – and squirrels

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILEYS WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2016

Can squirrels speak? Do snails scream?

Will a young couple, newly engaged, make it to their wedding day? Will their dysfunctional families ruin everything? Will they be undone by the advances of a very sexy, very unscrupulous heiress to a pharmaceuticals corporation?

Is getting married even a remotely reasonable idea in the twenty-first century?

And what in the world is a ‘Veblen’ anyway?

‘Raw and weird and hilarious’ Guardian

‘A touching, wildly funny and peculiarly elegant look at the travails of love of all kinds’ Sunday Express

‘Elizabeth McKenzie is clearly some sort of genius’ Paul Murray

‘I can’t remember a book I enjoyed more’ Nina Stibbe

‘Seriously funny and extraordinarily well written’ Jonathan Franzen, Guardian books of the year