Dear Beneficiary

Author(s): Janet Kelly

Location(s): Nigeria

Genre(s): Humour

Era(s): Modern

Dear Beneficiary follows the adventures of Cynthia Hartworth, a feisty sixty- year- old woman who, despite strong convictions that she has everything in her life under her control, finds out the modern world isn’t always as it seems.
Widowed in her late fifties after a lifetime of marriage to the dutiful, but dull, Colin, she decides that life is for living and she takes on a number of activities with enthusiasm and energy – often to the distress and discomfort of those around her.
She embarks on a passionate affair with a thirty- eight -year old black man she met at Advanced Driving Classes, and is subsequently heart-broken to hear he has to return to his home in Nigeria to tend to his sick parents.
Cynthia’s grandson, Tom, helps her get on the internet in her bid to try and contact her former lover, Darius, via email. When she receives a ‘spam’ message asking for her bank details to help a friend who needs medical help, she immediately assumes Darius has been in contact to ask for her support.
As a result of her naivety and stoic resistance to suggestions she needs to be careful about communicating via email, she ends up travelling to Nigeria where she meets some very interesting people – and experiences a life she could never have imagined from the comfy sofa of her home in leafy suburbia.
Humourous, witty and fast-moving, Dear Beneficiary has a unique voice which questions the fragile foundations of middle-class conformity.

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