Crossing the Lines

by Melvyn Bragg (Author), Melvyn Bragg (Author), Melvyn Bragg (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2004

  $3.25

  Set in Britain during the 1950s, this moving and evocative novel follows the intertwined fates of people crossing boundaries in their lives. As a teenager in the small northern town of Wigton, Joe Richardson falls in love with Rachel, just when her life is about to be uprooted. While his parents, Sam and Ellen, face the frontiers of middle age, Joe finds himself drawn by the intoxicating world outside home, and swept into situations that seem beyond his control. Vividly conveying the spirit of the mid-century and the profound social changes taking place at the time, this is a masterly successor to the award-winning THE SOLDIER'S RETURN and A SON OF WAR.

• Used

  Paperback
  2003

  $3.25

  The story of Joe from the end of A Son Of War , aged 16 (1955), through to the end of his first year at Oxford (1959), crossing the lines between childhood and adulthood as well as crossing from working class small town Wigton to cosmpolitan, rarified Oxford and all that promises for the future. The main thread is his relationship with Rachel, the 15-yr-old schoolgirl he starts going out with in secret for fear of her father's fury and ends up engaged to while at Oxford until she breaks it off, knowing that they are on different paths in life and she belongs in the old, Wigton one. The dramas are the stuff of ordinary, family life, but Joe's rites of passage through adolescence will resonate with many, as will the example he sets of the new, post-war generation - the first 'teenagers', rock and roll and Teddy Boys.

• New

  Paperback
  2004

  $11.08

  Set in Britain during the 1950s, this moving and evocative novel follows the intertwined fates of people crossing boundaries in their lives. As a teenager in the small northern town of Wigton, Joe Richardson falls in love with Rachel, just when her life is about to be uprooted. While his parents, Sam and Ellen, face the frontiers of middle age, Joe finds himself drawn by the intoxicating world outside home, and swept into situations that seem beyond his control. Vividly conveying the spirit of the mid-century and the profound social changes taking place at the time, this is a masterly successor to the award-winning THE SOLDIER'S RETURN and A SON OF WAR.