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Once upon a time, in far-off England, there was a small village surrounded by a mighty forest, where a dark stranger, one Francis Fairfax, arrived to build a stately home. Fairfax Manor was renowned throughout the land for its feudal pleasures, its visit from the Queen, and the mysterious beauty of Lady Fairfax, who one day cursed the Fairfax name and vanished into the forest, never to be seen again except in a ghostly haze. Fast-forward to 1960...Over the centuries the forest has been destroyed, and the Fairfaxes have dwindled, too; now they are the local grocers to their suburb of Glebelands, a family as disintegrated as its ancestral home. It is here that young Isobel Fairfax awakens on the morning of her sixteenth birthday, a day that will change everything she knows and understands about her past and her future. Helping celebrate (if one could call it that) are the members of her strange and distracted family: There is Vinny, Maiden Aunt from Hell; Gordon, Isobel's father, who disappeared for seven years; and Charles, her elder brother, who divides his time between searching for aliens and waiting for the return of their long-gone mother, Eliza. And back again...As her day progresses, Isobel is pulled into brief time warps and extended periods of omniscience, from the days of the first Fairfax to the roaring twenties to World War II, through which she learns the truth about her family and about her mother, whose disappearance is part of the secret that remains at the heart of the forest.
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Review:
From the Publisher:
"A novel which will dazzle readers for years to come." --Hilary Mantel, London Review of Books
"Human Croquet offers further proof that Kate Atkinson is off and running in quite a fantastic direction of her own devising." --Katharine Weber, The New York Times Book Review
"[Kate Atkinson] writes such fluid, sparkling prose that an ingenious plot almost seems too much to ask, but we get it anyway." --Salon.com
"A literary tour de force." --San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle
"Intelligent, sympathetic, and terribly funny, this is simply a wonderful book." --Kate Tuttle, Boston Book Review
"Vivid and intriguing . . . [Human Croquet] fizzes and crackles along." --Penelope Lively, The Independent (London)
The brilliant second novel from the author of the Whitbread prizewinner Behind the Scenes at the Museum.
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- PublisherPicador USA
- Publication date1998
- ISBN 10 0312186886
- ISBN 13 9780312186883
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages352
- Rating
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Human Croquet: A Novel
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Picador USA
(1997)
ISBN 10: 0312186886
ISBN 13: 9780312186883
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Book Description Softcover. Condition: new. From the award-winning author of Life After Life comes Kate Atkinson's Human Croquet, part fairy tale, part mystery, part coming-of-age novelNew York Times Book Review Notable Book of the YearHuman Croquet tells the story of Isobel Fairfax, a girl growing up in Lythe, a typical 1960s British suburb. But Lythe was once the heart of an Elizabethan feudal estate and home to a young English tutor named William Shakespeare, and as Isobel investigates the strange history of her family, her neighbors, and her village, she occasionally gets caught in Shakespearean time warps. Meanwhile, she gets closer to the shocking truths about her missing mother, her war-hero father, and the hidden lives of her close friends and classmates.A stunning feat of imagination and storytelling, Kate Atkinson's Human Croquet is rich with the disappointments and possibilities every family shares. Seller Inventory # DADAX0312186886
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Human Croquet (Paperback)
Published by
St Martin's Press, New York
(1999)
ISBN 10: 0312186886
ISBN 13: 9780312186883
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. From the award-winning author of Life After Life comes Kate Atkinson's Human Croquet, part fairy tale, part mystery, part coming-of-age novel New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the YearHuman Croquet tells the story of Isobel Fairfax, a girl growing up in Lythe, a typical 1960s British suburb. But Lythe was once the heart of an Elizabethan feudal estate and home to a young English tutor named William Shakespeare, and as Isobel investigates the strange history of her family, her neighbors, and her village, she occasionally gets caught in Shakespearean time warps. Meanwhile, she gets closer to the shocking truths about her missing mother, her war-hero father, and the hidden lives of her close friends and classmates. A stunning feat of imagination and storytelling, Kate Atkinson's Human Croquet is rich with the disappointments and possibilities every family shares. From the author of "Behind the Scenes at the Museum" comes a wildly inventive, deeply moving, and darkly comic tale of a young girl's exploration of her past. At once a fairy tale, a mystery, and a family saga, by turns comic and tragic, the novel is rich with the disappointments and possibilities that every family shares. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9780312186883
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