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The Dark Circle: Shortlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction 2017

The Dark Circle: Shortlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction 2017

by Linda Grant (Author)

  • Used

    Paperback 2017

    $3.97

  • New

    Paperback 2017

    $12.06
Synopsis

Shortlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction
'Extraordinarily affecting' Alex Preston, Observer

'This is a novel whose engine is flesh and blood, not cold ideas . . . Grant brings the 1950s - that odd, downbeat, fertile decade between war and sexual liberation - into sharp, bright, heartbreaking focus' - Christobel Kent Guardian


All over Britain life is beginning again now the war is over but for Lenny and Miriam, East End London teenage twins who have been living on the edge of the law, life is suspended - they've contacted tuberculosis. It's away to the sanatorium - newly opened by the NHS - in deepest Kent for them where they will meet a very different world: among other patients, an aristocract, a young university grad, a mysterious German woman and an American merchant seaman with big ideas about love and rebellion. They are not the only ones whose lives will be changed forever.


'Grant is so good at conjuring up atmosphere and writes with earthy vivacity'- Anthony Gardner Mail on Sunday


'Read this fine, persuasive, moving novel and contemplate' John Sutherland, The Times

$3.97

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More Information

Format: Paperback
 Pages: 320
 Edition: 1
 Publisher: Virago
Published: 06 Apr 2017
ISBN 10: 0349006784
ISBN 13: 9780349006789

Media Reviews
Exhilaratingly good . . . This is a novel whose engine is flesh and blood, not cold ideas . . . Grant brings the 1950s - that odd, downbeat, fertile decade between war and sexual liberation - into sharp, bright, heartbreaking focus -- Christobel Kent * Guardian *
A Grant novel is always a treat . . . Grant captures the stigma that surrounded TB perfectly * Evening Standard *
A writer whose language crackles with vitality and whose descriptive powers are working at such a high level * Spectator *
Linda Grant brings a forgotten slice of social and medical history to life by conjuring a rich cast of disparate - though equally desperate - characters observed with wry humour and affection to produce an absorbing and profoundly moving story -- John Harding * Daily Mail *
The novel is funny but also poignant . . . I loved it * Stylist *
The Dark Circle is, beneath its narrative surface, fiercely political. She poses a large, naggingly relevant, question. What would (will?) privatisation of the NHS mean? Read this fine, persuasive, moving novel and contemplate - if you can dare to - that awful possibility -- John Sutherland * The Times *
Fascinating . . . a revealing insight: both funny and illuminating, it is a novel about what it means to treat people well, medically, emotionally and politically -- Hannah Beckerman * Observer *
Grant is so good at conjuring up atmosphere and writes with earthy vivacity -- Anthony Gardner * Mail on Sunday *
Contemporary issues linger ominously in Grant's margins, silently enriching what's already an astonishingly good period piece -- Lucy Scholes * Independent *
Her cast of characters is nothing less than a portrayal of post-war, class-riven Britain from the indolent aristocracy, to Oxford-educated blue stockings, and from car salesmen to the bottom of the pile, German emigres and East End Jewish lowlifes . . .This is a novel, above all, about trauma caused by the dark circle of tuberculosis, and results in a tight circle of comradeship. The ambitious reach of the novel is wisely held in check by its focus on a time when Lenny and Miriam had to discover for themselves what it was to be human * Jewish Chronicle *
A rich, engaging novel, further proof that Grant can conjure up a special mood in a specific period with great humour -- Ben Lawrence * Sunday Telegraph *
Extraordinarily affecting -- Alex Preston * Observer *
An extraordinary depiction of the physical and emotional experience of illness. She marvellously communicates the poignancy of youth and sexuality in the presence of impending death. Grant's voice is unlike any other writer; so immediate and engaged even when writing historical fiction -- Natasha Walter
An amazing subject, wonderfully depicted, with plausible people whom I grew to love . . . the most surprising plot developments. So original and full of life -- Joan Bakewell
Author Bio
Linda Grant is a novelist and journalist. She won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2000 and the Lettre Ulysses Prize for Literary Reportage in 2006, and was longlisted for the Man Booker in 2002 for Still Here. The Clothes on Their Backs was shortlisted for the Man Booker in 2008 and went on to win the South Bank Show Award.