Synopses & Reviews
The Booker Prize-winning authors first novel since The Photograph is a sweeping saga of three generations of women, their lives, and loves
A chance meeting in St. Jamess Park begins young Lorna and Matts intense relationship. Wholly in love, they leave London for a cottage in a rural Somerset village. Their intimate life togetherMatts woodcarving, Lornas self-discovery, their new baby, Mollyis shattered with the arrival of World War II. In 1960s London, Molly happens upon a forgotten newspapera seemingly small moment that leads to her first job and, eventually, a pregnancy by a wealthy man who wants to marry her but whom she does not love. Thirty years later, Ruth, who has always considered her existence a peculiar accident, questions her own marriage and begins a journey that takes her back to 1941and a redefinition of herself and of love.
Told in Livelys incomparable prose, Consequences is a powerful story of growth, death, and rebirth and a study of the previous centuryits major and minor events, its shaping of public consciousness, and its changing of lives.
Review
Joyous . . . At its center shimmers the idea of . . . the continuity of humankind as embodied in one family, shattered and reconstituted, fragile, stubborn, endearing.
The New York Times Book Review
A bold, lovely book.
Los Angeles Times Book Review
An often beautiful novel of astute observations.
San Francisco Chronicle
Synopsis
The Booker Prize?winning author?s sweeping saga of three generations of women ?One of the most accomplished writers of fiction of our day? (The Washington Post ) follows the lives and loves of three women?Lorna, Molly, and Ruth?from World War II?era London to the close of the century. Told in Lively?s incomparable prose, this is a powerful story of growth, death, and renewal, as well as a penetrating look at how the major and minor events of the twentieth century changed lives. By chronicling the choices and consequences that comprise one family?s history, Lively offers an intimate and profound reaffirmation of the force of connection between generations.
About the Author
Penelope Lively grew up in Egypt but settled in England after the war and took a degree in history at St Anne's College, Oxford. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and a member of PEN and the Society of Authors. She was married to the late Professor Jack Lively, has a daughter, a son and four grandchildren, and lives in Oxfordshire and London.
Penelope Lively is the author of many prize-winning novels and short story collections for both adults and children. She has twice been shortlisted for the Booker Prize; once in 1977 for her first novel, The Road to Lichfield, and again in 1984 for According to Mark. She later won the 1987 Booker Prize for her highly acclaimed novel Moon Tiger. Her novels include Passing On, shortlisted for the 1989 Sunday Express Book of the Year Award, City of the Mind, Cleopatra's Sister and Heat Wave.
Penelope Lively has also written radio and television scripts and has acted as presenter for a BBC Radio 4 program on children's literature. She is a popular writer for children and has won both the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Award.