Jane Gray, a poet whose husband leaves her shortly before the birth of their second child, considers herself a disaster area. That is, until the husband of her alter ego, cousin Lucy, climbs into her bed. Falling passionately in love for the first time, Jane finds her life transformed - but when a tragic accident exposes the affair to the world, she has to face the consequences ... THE WATERFALL is a powerful novel about desire and obsession, the violent conflicts of maternal and sexual love, and the extent to which we are free to challenge the cards dealt by the hand of fate. 'Brilliant . . . persistently cool and elegant' New York Times Book Review 'Margaret Drabble [is] a master of the quiet novel' Kirsty Gunn, Financial Times

Author Biography

Dame Margaret Drabble was born in Sheffield in 1939 and was educated at Newnham College, Cambridge. She is the author of nineteen novels including A Summer Bird-Cage, The Millstone, The Peppered Moth, The Red Queen, The Sea Lady, The Pure Gold Baby and The Dark Flood Rises. She has also written biographies and screenplays, and was the editor of the Oxford Companion to English Literature. She was appointed CBE in 1980, and made DBE in the 2008 Honours list. She was also awarded the 2011 Golden PEN Award for a Lifetime's Distinguished Service to Literature. She is married to the biographer Michael Holroyd.