Paperback / ISBN-13: 9780751533286

Price: £10.99

ON SALE: 5th June 2003

Genre: Biography & True Stories / Biography: General

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From the author of BETWEEN THE STOPS and TOKSVIG’S ALMANAC

In the Autumn of 1971, having been thrown out of a rather fancy private school, Sandi Toksvig was sent to the only remaining option – Mamaroneck High School, New York. She was thirteen years old and that year changed her life. Sandi auditioned and was chosen for the lead role in a production of The Skin of our Teeth by Thornton Wilder. Three girls were cast in the part of Gladys Antrobus, playing her at different ages of her life, and Sandi was the youngest. The three actresses soon became known as the Gladys’ and this was the beginning of a friendship with a group of females that still influences her to this day. Soon all the girls in the cast and crew were becoming members of The Gladys Society. In the end there were twelve of them.

GLADYS REUNITED records Sandi’s travels in America catching up with her eleven fellows. It is a biography, a travel journal and a portrait of American women today. It’s about friendship but also about Sandi herself, as she explores the origins of her career as a performer and her sense of national identity – where exactly does she fit?

Reviews

Touching and funny account of our favourite Great Dane going back to the America of her childhood and searching for its survivors
THE WEEK
Should not be read while eating, or in public, for fear of becoming helpless with laughter and having concerned passers-by call the men in white coats to cart you away
BOOKS MAGAZINE
Toksvig slices through absurdity with incisive wit. Her acid comments and quotes on "Dubya" alone are worth the read... Toksvig has learnt to strike pure and true. And if she can be entertaining along the way, so much the better.
IRISH TIMES