Absolutely and Forever
An electrifying love story from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Lily
-
-
4.4 • 9 Ratings
-
-
- $15.99
Publisher Description
‘Gorgeous’ Observer * ‘Profoundly moving’ Financial Times * 'Electrifying' Daily Mail
How do you find the courage to make your own life? An unputdownable novel about first love set in 1960s London from Sunday Times bestselling Rose Tremain
Marianne is fifteen when she falls helplessly and absolutely in love with Simon. Simon owns a Morris Minor, is in his final year at school and has a dazzling future ahead of him. Desperate to escape the stifling 1950s suburbs she has been raised in, Marianne feels sure she will be able to find true happiness with him.
However a twist of fate sees Simon’s glittering future dashed, and with it, Marianne’s dreams. He flees the country and Marianne, realising she will now have to make a life of her own, moves to London determined to reinvent herself. But Marianne cannot let go of that first all-encompassing love and all the while Simon is in Paris, nursing a secret that will alter everything.
‘A perfect Tremain novel… English, dark and yearning… Remarkable… Tremain shows us the things that make every human life extraordinary’ The Times
‘A complex tale of becoming that’s moving, evocative and mesmerising in its acuity’ Mail on Sunday
*A Sunday Times Book of the Year*
* Shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction *
READERS LOVE ABSOLUTELY AND FOREVER:
'Heartrending, funny, unputdownable' 5*****
'An undoubted modern classic' 5*****
'Marianne will remain with me as a friend' 5*****
'A masterclass in character and world building ... the writing is just sublime' 5*****
Customer Reviews
The things we do for love
The author is English and turned 80 this year. In addition to her 17 published novels, of which this is the most recent, her bibliography includes 5 collections of short stories, a children’s novel, and a memoir. She has won numerous awards and prizes (DBE, Dylan Thomas prize, Whitbread, Orange Prize, Costa, Bailey’s, Walter Scott, Booker shortlist etc) and taught at the University of East Anglia for many years before ending up as Chancellor there.
This short novel is told in the first person by Marianne Clifford. We meet her in the 1950s when she is 15, living in rural Berkshire with her parents and attending boarding school. Her father is a retired Colonel who “had a good war.” Her mother does what she’s told. Young Marianne falls in love with the neighbour’s boy, Simon, who is several years older than her and preparing to sit the entry exam for Oxford. She loses her virginity, but does not fall pregnant (unusual in fiction). He fails the exam, and goes to Paris, where he works in a bookshop and gets a French chick up the duff. She’s Catholic so they get married. Our gal’s bereft, but life goes on. Yada, yada, the end, where she crosses paths with Simon again, albeit not as she imagined.
Keen portrait of life in 1950s and 1960s Britain that I enjoyed, but will probably be of limited interest to millennials. However, Ms Tremain writes English prose as good as any currently published and this is worth reading for that reason alone. If you are new to her work, I suggest you start with ‘Restoration’ (1989) or ‘The Gustav Sonata’ (2019).