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|title=Restless

|author=William Boyd

|date=January 2007

|isbn=978-0747586203

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Ruth Gilmartin is a single mother, PhD student and teacher of English as a foreign language. She's immediately recognisable - her life is fairly comfortable but it could be better; she loves her son but she does have some regrets; she's happy as she is but occasionally gets lonely; she should get on with her thesis, but a bottle of wine and a night in front of the television proves an all-too-frequent better option. Ruth's mother, Sal, is an idiosyncratic widow who lives in a back of beyond Oxfordshire village and spends most of her time gardening.