Upstairs at the Party
Upstairs at the Party
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Summary
The brilliant new novel from the Man Booker shortlisted author of The Clothes on Their Backs
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Upstairs at the Party by Linda Grant
'If you go back and look at your life there are certain scenes, acts, or maybe just incidents on which everything that follows seems to depend. If only you could narrate them, then you might be understood. I mean the part of yourself that you don't know how to explain.' In the early Seventies a glamorous and androgynous couple known collectively as Evie/Stevie appear out of nowhere on the isolated concrete campus of a new university. To a group of teenagers experimenting with radical ideas they seem blown back from the future, unsettling everything and uncovering covert desires. But the varnished patina of youth and flamboyant self-expression hides deep anxieties and hidden histories. For Adele, with the most to conceal, Evie/Stevie become a lifelong obsession, as she examines what happened on the night of her own twentieth birthday and her friends' complicity in their fate. A set of school exercise books might reveal everything, but they have been missing for nearly forty years. From summers in Cornwall to London in the twenty-first century, long after they have disappeared, Evie/Stevie go on challenging everyone's ideas of what their lives should turn out to be.
Haunting. . compelling right to the very last page * List *
A hint of Brideshead . . . beautiful writing . . . [Grant] has a real knack for observation * Evening Standard *
[An] excellent novel . . . Straight-talking but far from straightforward in its observations, Upstairs at the Party's portrait of an era is convincing, its subtle cynicism regarding the pitfalls of freedom something to mull over * Daily Telegraph *
An enthralling coming-of-age story * Good Housekeeping *
A stylish, ambitious novel * Glamour *
Brilliantly observed . . . determinedly unsettling * Daily Mail *
Fascinating -- John Sutherland * The Times *
One of our best modern authors, a Liverpudlian with a huge imagination. I've never been able to stop reading any of her work once I've started -- Peter Hitchens * Mail on Sunday *
Grant is so accomplished a novelist of recent social history . . . tender and touching -- Suzy Feay * Literary Review *
Upstairs at the Party feels like a darker, more cynical version of Kate Atkinson's Emotionally Weird . . . a very good book: it creates a sense of yearning through a cloud of scepticism * Observer *
I read this deeply felt, deeply moving, novel twice. It's very good -- John Sutherland * The Times *
A wonderfully and perceptively written story, which rings utterly true, and as a consequence lifts the spirits * Guardian *
Grant always writes with incisive elegance and here paints a compelling picture of 1970s England . . . a stunner -- Ian Rankin * Guardian *
Her eye for social history is as sharp as ever -- Suzy Feay * Tablet *
It's Grant's heartfelt emotional complexity that you'll remember long past the last page * Stylist *
There's a thoughtful pessimism about this novel that makes it the finest of elegies for the dreams of 50 years ago -- John Sutherland * The Times *
A hint of Brideshead . . . beautiful writing . . . [Grant] has a real knack for observation * Evening Standard *
[An] excellent novel . . . Straight-talking but far from straightforward in its observations, Upstairs at the Party's portrait of an era is convincing, its subtle cynicism regarding the pitfalls of freedom something to mull over * Daily Telegraph *
An enthralling coming-of-age story * Good Housekeeping *
A stylish, ambitious novel * Glamour *
Brilliantly observed . . . determinedly unsettling * Daily Mail *
Fascinating -- John Sutherland * The Times *
One of our best modern authors, a Liverpudlian with a huge imagination. I've never been able to stop reading any of her work once I've started -- Peter Hitchens * Mail on Sunday *
Grant is so accomplished a novelist of recent social history . . . tender and touching -- Suzy Feay * Literary Review *
Upstairs at the Party feels like a darker, more cynical version of Kate Atkinson's Emotionally Weird . . . a very good book: it creates a sense of yearning through a cloud of scepticism * Observer *
I read this deeply felt, deeply moving, novel twice. It's very good -- John Sutherland * The Times *
A wonderfully and perceptively written story, which rings utterly true, and as a consequence lifts the spirits * Guardian *
Grant always writes with incisive elegance and here paints a compelling picture of 1970s England . . . a stunner -- Ian Rankin * Guardian *
Her eye for social history is as sharp as ever -- Suzy Feay * Tablet *
It's Grant's heartfelt emotional complexity that you'll remember long past the last page * Stylist *
There's a thoughtful pessimism about this novel that makes it the finest of elegies for the dreams of 50 years ago -- John Sutherland * The Times *
Linda Grant is a novelist and journalist. She won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2000 and the Lettre Ulysses Prize for Literary Reportage in 2006, and was longlisted for the Man Booker in 2002 for Still Here. The Clothes on Their Backs was shortlisted for the Man Booker in 2008 and went on to win the South Bank Show Award.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781844087501 |
| ISBN 10 | 1844087506 |
| Title | Upstairs at the Party |
| Author | Linda Grant |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Little, Brown Book Group |
| Year published | 2014-07-03 |
| Number of pages | 320 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |