The Hand That First Held Mine
The Award-Winning Sunday Times Bestseller from the Author of Hamnet
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4.2 • 89 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
The Sunday Times top 10 bestselling novel from the author of HAMNET and THE MARRIAGE PORTRAIT
*Over 400,000 copies sold*
Winner of the 2010 Costa Novel Award
'Exquisitely sensual' Emma Donoghue, author of Room
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Fresh out of university and in disgrace, Lexie Sinclair is waiting for life to begin. When the sophisticated Innes Kent turns up on her doorstep in rural Devon, she realises she can wait no longer, and leaves for London. There, Lexie carves out a new life for herself at the heart of bohemian 1950s Soho, with Innes by her side.
In the present, Ted and Elina no longer recognise their lives after the arrival of their first child. Elina, an artist, wonders if she will ever paint again, while Ted is disturbed by memories of his own childhood - memories that don't tally with his parents' version of events.
As Ted's search for answers gathers momentum, so a portrait is revealed of two women separated by fifty years, but linked by their passionate refusal to settle for ordinary lives.
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'The journey this novel invites us on is wonderful, involving time travel, heart ache, elation, confusion, freedom, nostalgia and art' Scotland on Sunday
'A skilful, hurtful writer, capable of imbuing the everyday with weight and colour, ridiculously pleasurable to read' Guardian
'Genuinely unputdownable' Literary Review
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
O Farrell (TheVanishing Act of Esme Lennox) interweaves two seemingly unconnected stories that of Lexie Sinclair, living in post-WWII London, and Elina Vilkuna, a denizen of present-day London. Lexie is a rebellious 21-year-old, and when she meets handsome and sophisticated Innes Kent, she realizes he s the one who can help her find the adventure and excitement she craves. Their affair coincides with her moving up in the ranks at the magazine he edits, but a tragedy changes Lexie s life forever. Fifty-odd years later, Elina, a painter, faces her own struggles: she recently had a son with her boyfriend, Ted, and, after a rough child-birth, Ted and Elina struggle to recalibrate their relationship as it evolves into parenthood. While O Farrell brings Lexie to life, she does not achieve the same with Elina and Ted, who come across as just another bland couple facing the challenges of having a child. The two plots are, naturally, connected, but the contemporary plot doesn t really get moving until too late in the book. If the contemporary storyline was developed half as well as the historical plot, this would be a wonderful book. As it is, it feels lighter than it should.
Customer Reviews
The Hand that First Held Mine
I enjoyed the book
The Hand that first Held Mine
The plot was reasonably interesting but - oh such a slow journey to get to the denouement! Beautiful evocative descriptions of such scenes as baby feeding, autumn leaves, post birth blues etc etc but seemed like ‘waffle’ - unnecessary to the narrative, which I started flicking through with some impatience.
It took forever to link up the stories of Lexie and Ted. It was hard to know whether the main protagonist was Ted or Elina. Too many words wasted on Elina. She was as it turned out pretty immaterial to the story. And Felix’s ‘crime’ is not big deal compared to other family debacles I’ve heard about. In a few words: storm in a teacup. Maggie O’Farrell’s masterpiece is “The Disappearing Act of Esme Lennox”. That was brilliant! “The Hand that First Held Mine” is very pale by comparison.
The Hand That First Held Mine
What I love about this book is that it is plausible this is reality life does just happen. We can make plans choose a career path and dream our dreams but we don't really control our own pathway the road takes unexpected twists and turns we go along for the ride.