The Grandmothers

by Doris May Lessing (Author), Doris May Lessing (Author)

• New

  Paperback
  2004

  $12.30

  Four novellas by Doris Lessing, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, that once again show her to be unequalled in her ability to capture the truth of the human condition.

  The title story, `The Grandmothers', is an astonishing tour de force, a shockingly intimate portrait of an unconventional extended family and the lengths to which they will go to find happiness and love. Written with a keen cinematic eye, the story is a ruthless dissection of the veneer of middle-class morality and convention.

  `Victoria and the Staveneys', takes us through 20 years of the life of a young underprivileged black girl in London. A chance meeting introduces her to the Staveneys - a liberal white middle-class family - and, seduced, she falls pregnant by one of the sons. As her daughter grows up, Victoria feels her parental control diminishing as the attractions of the Staveneys' world exert themselves. An honest and often uncomfortable look at race relations in London over the past few decades, Lessing reaffirms her brilliance at demonstrating the effect of society on the individual.

  With these novellas, and `The Reason for It' and `A Love Child', Lessing proves once again that she is one of our most valuable and insightful living authors.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2003

  $4.20

  The grande dame of English literature returns with a stunning collection of four short, intensely observed novels. With the four short novels in this collection, Doris Lessing once again proves that she is unequalled in her ability to capture the truth of the human condition. The title story, 'The Grandmothers', is an astonishing tour de force, a shockingly intimate portrait of an unconventional extended family and the lengths to which they will go to find happiness and love. Written with a cinematic eye, so that one almost feels one is watching the scenes from the sidelines, the story is a ruthless dissection of the veneer of middle-class morality and convention which manages to be at once universal and desperately, heartbreakingly personal. 'Victoria and the Staveneys' takes us through 20 years of the life of a young underprivilged black girl in London. A chance meeting introduces her to the world of the Staveneys - a liberal white middle-class family - and, seduced, she falls pregnant by one of the sons. As her young daughter grows up, Victoria feels her parental control diminishing as the attractions of the Staveney's world exert themselves. An honest and often uncomfortable lo