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The Clothes on Their Backs
by: Linda Grant

Off The Bookshelf's Price: $17.55

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Used Price: $10.80
Third Party New Price: $11.34

Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Binding: Paperback
EAN: 9781844085415
ISBN: 1844085414
Label: Virago Press (UK)
Manufacturer: Virago Press (UK)
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 293
Publication Date: 2008-01
Publisher: Virago Press (UK)
Studio: Virago Press (UK)
Sales Rank: 287409

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The White Tiger: A Novel (Man Booker Prize)

Editorial Review:

Product Description:
In a red brick mansion block off the Marylebone Road, Vivien, a sensitive, bookish girl grows up sealed off from both past and present by her timid refugee parents. Then one morning a glamorous uncle appears, dressed 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? This is a novel about survival - both banal 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 a London from the 1950s to the present day, 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.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Interesting but not compelling
This novel, which made it to the Man Booker short list, is uneven and not nearly as good as other novels on the list, like Barry's "The Secret Scripture and Adiga's "The White Tiger" (which won the prize). Grant is skillful at characterization, and almost all of the characters in "The Clothes on Their Back" are interesting, particularly Sandor, the slumlord uncle who escapes the Holocaust and then communist Hungary but can't escape his own nature. But the plot that draws the disparate characters together is thin, particularly the narrator Vivian's involvement with an alienated young punk who has a room in her uncle's apartment house. The narrator keeps pointing out that the two of them are only together for the sex, as if repeatedly trying to explain why these two would spend time together ... Read More

Rating:

- Good or evil?
Just long-listed for a Booker!

This book by Orange-Prize winner Linda Grant takes on several very complex questions. I think it gets ahead of all of them while building suspense about the characters. One big question dominates: what is a good person and what is an evil one? Not easy, but the choice of characters works well for it. The now-middle-aged narrator describes her father, mother, and uncle, whose different experiences with the Holocaust made them into very different people. But then, we see, they were different before that as well. So many issues of race and identity and self-discovery -- so little time! But as the earlier reviewer says, it all adds up to a good read.

Rating:

- Even 'monsters' have a human side
It takes some time before the main plot of the book really gets into its stride. The story is told by Vivien, the daughter of Ervin and Bertha Kovacs, Jews who had fled to London from the antisemitism in pre-war Hungary. They are timid people, desperate not to get into any further trouble, and they have been so traumatized by their past that they never talk about it. For example, Vivien has been told nothing about her grandparents, though she does know that Ervin has an elder brother, Sándor, who is the black sheep of the family and who arrived in England only after 1956. When Vivien was ten, she had once caught a glimpse of Sándor, who turned up at their front door, only to be driven away by his brother, who would not explain to Vivien why he hated his brother so and who forbade any ... Read More

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