Awards
2003 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel
Synopses & Reviews
Winner of the 2003 World Fantasy Award Graham Joyce chronicles a haunting, war-torn terrain in this heartrending novel of one family's quest to begin again -- without forgetting the lives they left behind. The Facts of Life
Set in Coventry, England, during and immediately after World War II, The Facts of Life revolves around the early years of Frank Arthur Vine, the illegitimate son of young, free-spirited Cassie and an American GI. Because Cassie is too unreliable and unstable to act as his proper guardian -- and is prone to "blue" periods in which she wanders off without warning or recollection -- Frank is brought up in the care of his strong-willed, stout-drinking grandmother, Martha Vine, who has, among other homemaking talents, the untoward ability to communicate with the dead.
So begins the first decade of Frank's life, one in which ghosts have a place at the table and divine order dictates the outcome of his days. Along the way there are brief stays with each of his six eccentric aunts, visits to the local mortuary, and voices inside of his own head that suggest that he, too, has the gift of supernatural intuition. An affecting tale of family and history, war and peace, love and madness, The Facts of Life will leave readers spellbound with its resounding expression of magic realism.
Review
"Joyce explores the shape and the texture of truth, walks the thin line between the religious and the sexual, and makes readers marvel at the power of the spirit and the psyche...as a haunting expression of magic realism, [he] evokes the work of Gabriel García Márquez." Booklist
Review
"A rich and engaging account of particular lives amid history and great change, narrated with real grace by a master storyteller." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Warm with nostalgia and flecked with the subtle fantasy that seasons nearly all [Joyce's] fiction....[T]he subtlety with which Joyce presents clairvoyant episodes makes them entirely credible....[A] haunting story..." Publishers Weekly
Review
"Joyce walks with the grace of a circus star, or a Henry James, on that narrow line between seeming and being." Salon.com
Review
"Joyce is brilliant....[The Facts of Life] is a book about beginnings that are also continuities, and about ordinary lives stranger than casual inspection knows." Time Out, London
Review
"I won't bother saying Graham Joyce deserves to find a wide audience in America; rather I think the American audience deserves to find him." Jonathan Lethem, author of Motherless Brooklyn
Review
"[The Facts of Life] is the kind of book I love to read! It's an epic saga about family, love, war, and magic. Joyce's characters are memorable. They remind me of some of my own weird relatives. I have not been so charmed by a novel in a long time." Isabel Allende
Review
"British novelist Graham Joyce captures the transcendent dimension of ordinary life in his arresting World War II novel about the Vine family of Coventry, England." Dallas Morning News
Review
"Cassie's frantic sexual energy during the Blitz and the vivid description of the Blitz itself are nearly enough to carry the novel....Joyce could have omitted several sisters and side plots to make this a more focused, magical, gripping tale." Library Journal
Synopsis
In this winner of the 2003 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel, Joyce makes a stunning departure with a spellbinding family saga, the most ambitious and psychologically captivating work of his career.
Synopsis
Graham Joyce chronicles a haunting, war-torn terrain in this heartrending novel of one family's quest to begin again without forgetting the lives they left behind.
Set in Coventry, England, during and immediately after World War II, The Facts of Life revolves around the early years of Frank Arthur Vine, the illegitimate son of young, free-spirited Cassie and an American GI. Because Cassie is too unreliable and unstable to act as his proper guardian and is prone to "blue" periods in which she wanders off without warning or recollection Frank is brought up in the care of his strong-willed, stout-drinking grandmother, Martha Vine, who has, among other homemaking talents, the untoward ability to communicate with the dead.
So begins the first decade of Frank's life, one in which ghosts have a place at the table and divine order dictates the outcome of his days. Along the way there are brief stays with each of his six eccentric aunts, visits to the local mortuary, and voices inside of his own head that suggest that he, too, has the gift of supernatural intuition. An affecting tale of family and history, war and peace, love and madness, The Facts of Life will leave readers spellbound with its resounding expression of magic realism.
About the Author
Graham Joyce's books include The Limits of Enchantment, Smoking Poppy, Indigo (a New York Times Notable Book of 2000) and The Tooth Fairy. He is a four-time recipient of the British Fantasy Award and winner of the French Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire. He lives in Leicester, England, with his wife and two children.