You may love Eric - or want to shake him! Passionately idealistic about his work as a librarian, he's also ruefully aware that he's not exactly Superman. Forced to hide his mysterious background and his mortifying fears, he's a man with secrets - withheld even from close friends. His once homely wife, now a fashionista, has abandoned him, to live in Seattle with a high-powered corporate kingpin, taking their only child, a moody minx-in-waiting, about to turn thirteen. Yet, against the odds, Eric sets out to prove himself - indeed, even to find a soul-mate. Whether braving 'Choco-Love' Speed-Dating; running Wandsworth Prison readers' groups; attending an American Church that champions the Gospel of Prosperity, or rescuing his daughter from near-rape - he finally comes to epitomize the truth of Hemingway's words: The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. Shortlisted for the MIND Book of the Year, Broken Places combines laugh-out-loud comedy with a examination of fear: the most common - and most frequently concealed - of all our human emotions.