# The Pumpkin Eater

Canonical: https://www.bookquiver.com/penelope-mortimer/the-pumpkin-eater/9780241240106

![The Pumpkin Eater](https://quivercdn.com/covers/penguin-classics/penelope-mortimer/the-pumpkin-eater_978-02-4124-010-6.jpg?v=2026-04-24%2011%3A36%3A11)

- Book: [The Pumpkin Eater](https://www.bookquiver.com/penelope-mortimer/the-pumpkin-eater) ([The Pumpkin Eater.md](https://www.bookquiver.com/penelope-mortimer/the-pumpkin-eater.md))
- Authors: [Penelope Mortimer](https://www.bookquiver.com/penelope-mortimer)
- Publisher: penguin_classics
- ISBN: 978-02-4124-010-6
- Pages: 160
- Published: 2015-07-02
- Language: en_GB
- Binding: Softcover

## Description

Peter, Peter, Pumpkin eater Had a wife and couldn't keep her...' In this extraordinary, semi-autobiographical novel, Penelope Mortimer depicts a married woman's breakdown in 1960s London. With three husbands in her past, one in her present and a numberless army of children, Mrs Armitage is astonished to find herself collapsing one day in Harrods. Strange, unsettling and shot through with black comedy, this is a moving account of one woman's realisation that marriage and family life may not, after all, offer all the answers to the problems of living.