Suzi Feay
State of the Reunion
Upstairs at the Party
By Linda Grant
Virago 306pp £14.99
Our narrator, Adele Ginsberg, wangles her way into university in the early 1970s by falsely asserting a family tie to the more famous Allen. The poet has obligingly sent her a card opening ‘Dear Cousin’. The tutor in charge of admissions is amused but unconvinced: ‘Our grandfathers were all liars, mine was, yours was. Still, it’s quite a good attempt.’ ‘We were an alliance of liars,’ Adele muses decades later, on a return visit to her alma mater, as another don marvels at how much has changed: ‘In those days we did take a risk on people, we were able to. I’m not even sure if the DofE would let us get away with it now. And the parents of applicants with the three As might even sue.’
An author’s note declares: ‘This novel is based on a particular time in my own life, but the characters are the product of my own imagination.’ Adele – like Grant, born in Liverpool – loses her father to suicide at a young age. She is restless, curious, not particularly academic but up for adventure; physically, she resembles the contemporary icon Patti Smith, or so her lovers tell her. More than that, she is
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
It is a triumph @arthistorynews and my review @Lit_Review is here!
In just thirteen years, George Villiers rose from plain squire to become the only duke in England and the most powerful politician in the land. Does a new biography finally unravel the secrets of his success?
John Adamson investigates.
John Adamson - Love Island with Ruffs
John Adamson: Love Island with Ruffs - The Scapegoat: The Brilliant Brief Life of the Duke of Buckingham by Lucy Hughes-Hallett
literaryreview.co.uk
During the 1930s, Winston Churchill retired to Chartwell, his Tudor-style country house in Kent, where he plotted a return to power.
Richard Vinen asks whether it’s time to rename the decade long regarded as Churchill’s ‘wilderness years’.
Richard Vinen - Croquet & Conspiracy
Richard Vinen: Croquet & Conspiracy - Churchill’s Citadel: Chartwell and the Gatherings Before the Storm by Katherine Carter
literaryreview.co.uk