Tilda Is Visible

Jane Tara's novel Tilda is Visible has a cracking premise. Middle aged and older women often complain about feeling invisible; what if invisibility was a real, physical condition?

'I'm disappearing?'

'We don't use that term anymore. Invisibility advocates are very much against it. Women who suffer from invisibility don't literally disappear. You may be invisible, but you're certainly not disappearing. There's a difference.'

Tilda is fifty two, her unsatisfactory marriage has ended and she's feeling unfulfilled in her business life. To her horror, she finds that bits of her are vanishing -- first a finger, then an ear, a nose. She joins a support group where she meets women who have become completely invisible. And everyone tells her there is no cure. What to do?

Well, spoiler alert, Tilda does find ways to fight back and restore her visibility, which involve unpacking past trauma, lots of supportive female friendships, hefty doses of meditation, rewriting her mental scripts, and photography, as well as meeting a lovely guy (who happens to be blind). However, this is very much a story of self-rescue, and while there are lots of funny moments early on, the mood shifts to a more earnest exploration of female sense of self, domestic abuse and the social irrelevance of older women.

Tilda Is Visible would be a great choice for book clubs, and there's even a handy list of questions at the back to make the discussion easier.