Passing On
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4.2 • 22 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
The Man Booker Prize–winning author “charts the efforts of a middle-aged brother and sister to begin a new life after their tyrannical mother’s death” (The New York Times).
In Passing On, “the richest and most rewarding of her novels,” Penelope Lively applies her distinctive insight and consummate artistry to the story of an abusive and manipulative mother’s legacy to her children (The Washington Post Book World).
When Dorothy Glover dies, ending her reign of terror, siblings Helen and Edward Daimler, both middle-aged and unmarried, are left ill equipped to move forward and lead their own healthy, independent lives. But as time passes, the two slowly learn to accept what has been lost in their own lives and begin to embrace what can still be retrieved.
Writing with both wit and compassion, Lively conjures up Edward and Helen’s dilemmas with uncommon sympathy, immersing the reader in their concerns through her careful orchestration of emotional details.
“Passing On feels like real life drawn to scale, where private dreams dwarf the daily routine . . . The slow unfolding of secrets gives the book tension without melodrama.” —San Francisco Chronicle
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Greystones is a moldy, drafty house of no great distinction located in the equally nondescript English town of Spaxton. The domineering and cantankerous Dorothy Glover has finally passed away, leaving her middle-aged progeny, Helen and Edward, to examine their lives, both past and future. It's a subtle plot and one that does well with Lively's ( The Road to Lichfield ) gently assured style. By revealing developments through small details--the discarded dishrags that mark the beginning of a relationship and the glimpse of a watch that signals its end--she delicately delineates the impact of love, scandal and turmoil. On the rare occasion when Lively gives reign to sweeping statements, as when the dramatic Louise comments on motherhood (``At the moments you wish you were shot of the whole thing you know perfectly well that it's precisely because you couldn't endure to be without it, now you know about it, that you've got to go through all this''), her writing doesn't quite ring true. But such instances are rare in this consistently engrossing tale.
