The Clothes on Their Backs

The Clothes on Their Backs

by Linda Grant (Author)

Synopsis

In a red brick mansion block off the Marylebone Road, Vivien, a sensitive, bookish girl grows up sealed off from both past and present by her timid refugee parents. Then one morning a glamorous uncle appears, dressed in a mohair suit, with a diamond watch on his wrist and a girl in a leopard-skin hat on his arm. Why is Uncle Sandor so violently unwelcome in her parents' home? This is a novel about survival - both banal and heroic - and a young woman who discovers the complications, even betrayals, that inevitably accompany the fierce desire to live. Set against the backdrop of a London from the 1950s to the present day, The Clothes on Their Backs is a wise and tender novel about the clothes we choose to wear, the personalities we dress ourselves in, and about how they define us all.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 304
Edition: Digital original
Publisher: Virago
Published: 02 Apr 2009

ISBN 10: 1844085422
ISBN 13: 9781844085422
Book Overview: The brilliant new novel by Orange Prize winner, Linda Grant, about the legacies of history, longlisted for both the Orange Prize, 2008 and the Man Booker Prize, 2008
Prizes: Winner of The South Bank Show Awards: Literature 2009. Shortlisted for Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2008. Long-listed for Orange Prize 2008.

Media Reviews
** 'If you read only one novel this year, make sure it is The Clothes on Their Backs * SUNDAY EXPRESS *
** 'A beautifully written and truly moving book about the experience of growing up in Britain as a second generation immigrant * EXPRESS *
** 'It's a sublimely atmospheric and moving novel * LONDON PAPER *
** 'This is a vivid, enjoyable and consistently unexpected novel * THE DAILY TELEGRAPH *
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.