In the original dustsheet. Black cloth binding with silver title on the spine.

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In a small town in the middle of England, the aftermath of the Second World War brings change. For ambitious industrialist Charles Freeman, it offers new opportunities and marriage to Mary. He buys the big house on the hill and nails his aspirations to the future. In quick succession, three sons and a daughter bring life to the big house and, with it, the seeds of family joy and tragedy. As the children grow and struggle with the hazards of adulthood, Charles’ business expands in direct proportion to his girth and becomes a symbol of the town’s fortunes as Britain claws its way back from the grey austerity of wartime Britain. As times change, so do the family’s fortunes. Their stories create a generous epic, an extraordinarily rich and plangent hymn to the transformation of middle England over the past fifty years. At its heart is a diverse and persuasive cast of loveable and odious characters attempting to contend with the restrictions of their generation. This is the story of our lives.

Reviews:

• ‘A big book with a big heart. Pears is an unashamedly moving writer and this marvellous book will reduce many to tears’ Punch

• ‘His genius in telling a story…An operatic novel full of death, sex, brothers, sisters, cousins and throbbing hearts’ Daily Telegraph

• ‘Astonishing and ambitious…Each detail is resonant, and the author’s realism and compassion irradiates the writing. A story about people – us – and their context, written with authority and unshowy grace. Early nineteenth-century France had Balzac, we have Pears to trace our fortunes and follies’ The Times

• ‘Impossible to resist. I could go on about how wonderful it is, but read it for yourself’ Time Out

• ‘He’s an astonishing novelist, as interested in small domestic detail as in the wider implications of human relationships. A long book, yes, but so satisfying that I wished it even longer’
  Good Housekeeping

The Author, Tim Pears is the author of five novels: In the Place of Fallen Leaves (which won the Hawthornden Prize and the Ruth Hadden Memorial Award), In a Land of Plenty, A Revolution of the Sun, Wake Up and Blenheim Orchard. In a Land of Plenty was made into a ten-part BBC TV series. Tim Pears has also received the Lannan Award in the USA. He lives in Oxford.