My Cleaner by Maggie Gee

The first book I've read in a single sitting for a long time, Maggie Gee's most recent novel is super - a really lovely book about a mother whose son sinks into depression, so she calls in her old cleaner from Uganda, whom he loved as a boy. It's really good, funny and moving - kind of like Margaret Atwood meets the Ladies detective agency stuff. Gee is excellent on racism, as she is on minute observations of every day life. Brilliant stuff.

"The sounds in the village were always the same. The city is a muddle of shouts and machines, but the sounds in the village spoke to me. The thump of the wooden pestle on its mortar as the women crushed ground-nuts for ground-nut sauce. Thud-ah, thud-ah like the beats of my heart. And little quick voices of weaver birds. They dart through the branches like bright yellow thread."