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Title details for Family Album by Penelope Lively - Wait list

Family Album

A Novel

by Penelope Lively
Josephine Bailey
Audiobook
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Wait time: About 2 weeks
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0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: About 2 weeks
All Alison ever wanted was a blissful childhood for her six children, with summers at the beach and birthday parties on the lawn at their family home. Together with Ingrid, the family au pair, she has worked hard to create a real "old-fashioned family life." But beneath its postcard sheen, the picture is clouded by a distant father, Alison's inexplicable emotional outbursts, and long-repressed secrets that no one dares mention. For years, Alison's adult children have protected her illusion of domestic perfection—but as each child confronts the effects of past choices on their current adult lives, it becomes evident that each must face the truth.


Penelope Lively's novels of history, memory, and character have earned her a loyal legion of fans. Like Ian McEwan's Atonement, this novel is a measured, thoughtful look at how events of the past, both small and large, seen and unseen, deeply inform character and the present. Quietly provocative and disturbing, Family Album is a highly nuanced work that showcases a master of her craft.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    November 16, 2009

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781400193523
      • File size: 235853 KB
      • Duration: 08:11:21

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Set in late-twentieth-century England, this novel will maintain a tight grip on listeners' attention. As the author introduces the family estate of Allersmead and its owners--the Harper family--the story seems straightforward. But quotidian dialogue and description give way to the airing of a family secret and depictions of how it affects each family member. Josephine Bailey makes seemingly effortless switches between characters. In particular, she gives distinct voices to the children and, as the novel progresses, believably changes their voices as they grow up. Bailey also portrays a large number of characters with a variety of accents. Overall, she fully captures the spirit of Lively's novel. R.F. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      September 14, 2009
      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 recherché 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.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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