Family Album
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3.8 • 6 Ratings
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- £3.99
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- £3.99
Publisher Description
*NOMINATED FOR THE COSTA NOVEL AWARD*
Family Album 'a hugely enjoyable read' from Booker Prize winner Penelope Lively
'This novel should delight her regular readers and ensnare new ones' Evening Standard
Allersmead is a big shabby Victorian suburban house. The perfect place to grow up for elegant Sandra, difficult Gina, destructive Paul, considerate Katie, clever Roger and flighty Clare.
But was it?
Now adults, the children return to Allersmead one by one. To their home-making mother and aloof writer father, and a house that for years has played silent witness to a family's secrets.
And one devastating secret of which no one speaks . . .
'One of those ridiculously simple, ridiculously readable novels whose artistry only becomes apparent when you put it down' Sunday Telegraph
'A pleasure to read, hugely enjoyable, consistently absorbing, hilarious' Independent
Penelope Lively is the author of many prize-winning novels and short-story collections for both adults and children. She won the 1987 Booker Prize for her highly acclaimed novel Moon Tiger. She is a popular writer for children and has won both the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Award. She was appointed CBE in the 2001 New Year's Honours List, and DBE in 2012. Penelope Lively lives in London.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Employing her trademark skill at honing detail and dialogue, Lively (Moon Tiger) delivers a vigorous new novel revolving around a house outside of London, the sprawling Edwardian homestead of Allersmead, and the family of six children who grew up there. By degrees in shifting POVs and time periods cutting from the 1970s until the present Lively introduces the prodigious Harper family. There's Alison, the frazzled matriarch, who married young and pregnant, and persuaded her historian husband to buy Allersmead; distracted father Charles, who writes recherch tomes in his study and can't remember what ages his children are; and the children, who range from the wayward eldest and mother's favorite, Paul, to the youngest, Clare, whose parentage involves a family secret concerning Ingrid, the Scandinavian au pair. Lively adeptly focuses on the second-oldest, Gina, a foreign journalist who planned her life to stay far away from home until, at age 39, fellow journalist Philip goads her to contemplate settling down for the first time. With its bountiful characters and exhaustive time traveling, Lively's vivisection of a nuclear family displays polished writing and fine character delineation.
