Synopses & Reviews
"this is my book and i am writing it by my own hand."
Mary and her three sisters rise every day to backbreaking farmwork that threatens to suppress their own awakening desires, whether it's Violet's pull toward womanhood or Beatrice's affinity for the Scriptures. But it's their father, whose anger is unleashed at the slightest provocation, who stands to deliver the most harm. Only Mary, fierce of tongue and a spitfire since birth, dares to stand up to him. When he sends her to work for the local vicar and his invalid wife in their house on the hill, he deals her the only blow she may not survive.
Within walking distance of her family farm, the vicarage is a world away-a curious, unsettling place unlike any she has ever known. Teeming with the sexuality of the vicar's young son and the manipulations of another servant, it is also a place of books and learning-a source of endless joy. Yet as young Mary soon discovers, such precious knowledge comes at a devastating price, as is gradually made clear once she begins the task of telling her own story.
Reminiscent of Alias Grace in the exploration of the power dynamics between servants and those they serve and of Celie's struggles in The Color Purple, this quietly devastating tour de force reminds us that knowledge can destroy even as it empowers.
Review
“A wonderfully convincing voice and a devastating story told with great skill and economy. . . . A small tour de force” Marian Keyes, bestselling author of < i=""> Angels <> and < i=""> Anybody Out There? <>
Review
"I loved it. The Colour of Milk is charming, Brontë-esque, compelling, special, and hard to forget. I loved Mary's voice--so inspiring and likeable. Such a hopeful book." Marian Keyes, bestselling author of < i=""> Angels <> and < i=""> Anybody Out There? <>
Review
“Nell Leyshon has beautifully captured a voice that haunts, long after the last word has been read. Brava!” Kathleen Grissom, < i=""> New York Times <> bestselling author of < i=""> The Kitchen House <>
Review
“Compelling. . . . Leyshon brings her narrator brilliantly to life. . . . Mary draws the reader in from the opening pages. Here is a headstrong, forthright, optimistic character determined to survive her wretched circumstances in a literary jewel crafted by an accomplished writer.” Booklist
Review
“At once lyric and brutal. . . . Readers of historical and womens fiction should investigate.”- Library Journal
Review
“Resonant, heartbreaking. . . . The Colour of Milk is a truly wonderful reada slender, beautiful novel with as much heart as a book twice its size.” San Francisco Chronicle
Review
“The unflinching, observant, and thoroughly persuasive voice of the narrator, a shrewd, illiterate farm girl, makes this slim novel striking.” The Atlantic
Synopsis
The Colour of Milk is a literary tour de force of power, class, and fate, told in the fierce, urgent voice of the irrepressible Mary, a character as indelible as
The Color Purples Celie and Margaret Atwoods eponymous Alias Grace.
Set in England in 1830, The Colour of Milk by Nell Leyshon is an emotionally haunting work of historical fiction — hailed as “charming, Brontë-esque...and hard to forget” (Marian Keyes) — about an illiterate farm girls emotional and intellectual awakening and its devastating consequences.
Mary, the spirited youngest daughter of an angry, violent man, is sent to work for the local vicar and his invalid wife. Her strange new surroundings offer unsettling challenges, including the vicars lecherous son and a manipulative fellow servant. But life in the vicarage also offers unexpected joys, as the curious young girl learns to read and write — knowledge that will come at a tragic price.
About the Author
Nell Leyshon's first novel, Black Dirt, was longlisted for the Orange Prize and shortlisted for the Commonwealth Prize. She is also an award-winning dramatist whose plays include Comfort Me with Apples, winner of an Evening Standard Award, and Bedlam, which was the first play written by a woman for Shakespeare's Globe.