Here is a fresh, beautifully written story of an almost old woman who, one morning on impulse, walks out of a forty-five-year-old marriage, leaving her invalid husband calling querulously for his breakfast. In a desperate bid for a life of her own, and with little more in her pocket than her first Old Age Pension cheque, Eva exchanges her sedate and conventional middle-class existence in a Montreal suburb for a chaotic rooming-house life in one of a city's poorer districts. Ev'as account of her transition from housewife to eccentric is the basis for this warm and delightful novel which, in s a surprising way, turns out to be a love story. Eva herself is a wonderful character, with a prickly charm , an acid humour, and a probing, active intelligence that give sense and meaning to her strange choice, and makes her story a compelling and unforgettable experience.