The Old Joke paperback

Mim Lyons is a retired film actress, occasionally still recognised from her last great starring role in the late 1960s, but now more than content to restrict her performances to occasional play-readings with a group of old friends from the theatrical world. But when her agent calls out of the blue with a job offer, her husband begins to have his own dreams and schemes about the possibility of a comeback, in a part that unsettles Mim’s perception of how her husband sees her – and of who she really is. While her friends’ marriage hits the rocks, her son struggles to clean up his act, her estranged daughter floats back into her life, and her husband is suddenly rendered vulnerable, Mim gradually comes to reassess the roles she has been playing – as friend, as daughter, as mother and as wife – and to decide who exactly she wants to be.