Poor Cow
A Virago Modern Classic
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THE BESTSELLLING CLASSIC OF SIXTIES LONDON
'Touching, truthful and fresh - a tour de force' MARGARET DRABBLE
'Hilarious, heartbreaking' PARIS REVIEW
'Her art is ignited by voice' ALI SMITH, GUARDIAN
'Exuberantly alive' SUNDAY TIMES
To think when I was a kid I planned to conquer the world and if anyone saw me now they'd say, 'She's had a rough night, poor cow.'
Joy - twenty-one, bleach-blonde, a head full of dreams - walks down Fulham Broadway in a maternity dress and high suede shoes, carrying her week-old baby. Her husband Tom is a thief and on the proceeds of a job they move to a luxury flat in Ruislip, all new lino and fitted carpets. Then Tom is sent to prison, leaving Joy to move in with Auntie Emm - and to grapple with motherhood, modelling and unreliable men. Exuberant, earthy and tender, Poor Cow was a revelatory portrait of sixties London life.
INTRODUCED BY MARGARET DRABBLE
'Touching, truthful and fresh - a tour de force' MARGARET DRABBLE
'Hilarious, heartbreaking' PARIS REVIEW
'Her art is ignited by voice' ALI SMITH, GUARDIAN
'Exuberantly alive' SUNDAY TIMES
To think when I was a kid I planned to conquer the world and if anyone saw me now they'd say, 'She's had a rough night, poor cow.'
Joy - twenty-one, bleach-blonde, a head full of dreams - walks down Fulham Broadway in a maternity dress and high suede shoes, carrying her week-old baby. Her husband Tom is a thief and on the proceeds of a job they move to a luxury flat in Ruislip, all new lino and fitted carpets. Then Tom is sent to prison, leaving Joy to move in with Auntie Emm - and to grapple with motherhood, modelling and unreliable men. Exuberant, earthy and tender, Poor Cow was a revelatory portrait of sixties London life.
INTRODUCED BY MARGARET DRABBLE
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- Published: Jan 22 2026
- 196 x 126mm
- ISBN: 9780349020853
Press Reviews
Margaret Drabble
Touching, truthful and fresh . . . written with an unselfconscious elegance that conceals its craft . . . A tour de force
Ali Smith
GuardianHer art is ignited by voice, especially by voice more usually given no societal, literary or aesthetic power or space but whose authority, as you hear it, is unquestionable
- Paris Review
Nell Dunn's hilarious, heartbreaking Poor Cow, about a single mother in sixties London
- Independent
It was Nell's interest in the women of the working class that made her work truly radical