The Clothes on Their Backs
Books / Paperback
Books › Fiction › Family Life
ISBN: 1844085414 / Publisher: Virago Press Ltd, February 2008
* The brilliant new novel by Orange Prize winner, Linda Grant, about the legacies of history, set in 1970s London
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In a red-brick mansion block near the Marylebone Road, Vivien, a sensitive, bookish girl, grows up sealed off from both past and present by her timid refugee parents. Then a glamorous uncle appears, 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? Vivien wants to know.This is a story about survival - both everyday 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 1970s London, 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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