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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
Lifestyle
Jessie Thompson

Clare Chambers: Best and worst compliment? ‘My mum loves your books’

Orion Publishing

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In the summer of 2022, one novel attracted the kind of feverish word-of-mouth popularity that often only comes to debuts. Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers, set in 1950s suburban south London, was an unputdownable story of suppressed desires and longing in small-town lives, with a subplot about a mysterious virgin birth; “almost flawless,” said The Sunday Times.

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