Overview

Lavinia Greenlaw’s mesmerising debut novel about growing up in the surreal banality of mid-’70s Essex. Lavinia Greenlaw puts before us the monochrome, immemorial middle England of the 1970s in all its dowdy glory, and has us see through the mercurial, bewitching Mary George’s eyes how a seemingly static landscape is suddenly illuminated by the most vivid bursts of energy, colour and drama. Punk’s torch flares into life and singes the fringes of England. Mary George bears witness and burns brighter still: she is more memorable than even the extraordinary events around her, and the reader will find it devastatingly hard to leave her company at the end of this exceptional debut about growing up under the shadow of an unknowable, inescapable small-town mystery.

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9780007204595

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Reviews

'A poet's eye clearly informs Greenlaw's beautifully observed portrait of Seventies provincial life. In prose layered like paint, Greenlaw conjures up the period through details that will strike endless chords with readers who grew up at that time ! This is a suggestive, elusive novel, which achieves a magical effect by the gradual accumulation of images.' Vogue 'This is a terrific first novel, a meteorological force in its own right.' Evening Standard 'A composed and sensuous first novel.' Financial TImes 'A spacious and compassionate read.' Time Out 'What is most impressive, ultimately, is the strength and solidity of the house Greenlaw builds around the reader: every brick carefully aligned, necessary and true.' Independent on Sunday

Author Information

Lavinia Greenlaw lives in London, where she was born. She has published three books of poems, most recently Minsk, which was shortlisted for the Forward, T.S. Eliot and Whitbread Poetry Awards. She is the author of two novels: Mary George of Allnorthover and An Irresponsible Age, as well as The Importance of Music to Girls, a memoir. Her first novel, Mary George of Allnorthover, won France’s Prix du Premier Roman, and her other awards include a Forward Prize for best single poem and a NESTA fellowship. She wrote the libretto for Ian Wilson’s Hamelin, and is working with him on another opera. She lectures at Goldsmiths College.

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