Leaving the Yellow House

Fifty new books at e1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry

She had lived by delays; she had meant to stop drinking; she had put off the time, and now she had smashed her car.

At once harsh and tender, expansive and acutely funny, this is the story of an elderly and self-destructive dipsomaniac in a Western desert town, who finds herself faced with a final, impossible choice.