The Mellow Madam

From the haunting loneliness of an elderly woman lost in the imagined world of a soap opera, to the raw grief of a mother losing her child to drugs, and the shame of a doctor’s wife confronted by her husband’s hidden past, these stories illuminate the cost of survival and the quiet courage it takes to endure.  Elsewhere, a reality TV star faced with her grandmother’s exposure in a tabloid sting, and the Queen Bee of an amateur dramatic society upstaged by her cleaner, navigate public humiliation and lost status in strikingly different ways.

By turn emotive, humorous and unflinchingly honest, these ten stories centre on female experience, exploring the confusions of youth and the challenges of ageing, the power of passion and the devastation of loss.  Arditti’s characters, drawn with his hallmark psychological acuity, grapple with the compromises they have made, the lies they have told, and the truths they can no longer avoid.