The Pumpkin Eater

The story of a marriage of two sensitive, articulate people, bound together by the strongest physical and emotional ties yet helpless in their inability to communicate. To Jo, Jake represents her first love and their marriage a dream of the future: her previous husbands and large family of children are merely the framework for that dream which is shattered when she learns that he is unfaithful. She withdraws into a private world of deepening misery whilst Jake seeks increasing refuge in his career. Threatened with the destruction of their marriage Jo makes a desperate attempt to hold Jake's love. His betrayal of her forces Jo to decide whether she can bear to face reality. Based on the novel, The Pumpkin Eater by Penelope Mortimer.