Ordinary People by Diana Evans
Two couples in south London face grief, desire and parenthood as their relationships begin to come apart.
Melissa has a new baby and fears that motherhood is shrinking in her world. Michael still loves her, but not steadily enough. Damian is grieving his father while trying to remain present for Stephanie and their children. Stephanie wants a good, ordinary life, but grief, desire and disappointment make that feel out of reach.
Ordinary People is a novel of Black British life, marriage, sex, parenthood, friendship and aging that captures the fragile architecture that holds a household together. Both gripping and universal, this London novel explores relationships and identity with insight and emotional honesty.
'Diana is so amazing when it comes to writing about humans and relationships... I don't know anyone who's as skilled as her' Candice Carty-Williams, Oprah Magazine
'I am shouting from the rooftops to anyone who will listen to this book. It's so so good - realistic and funny and so truthful it almost winded me' Dolly Alderton
'I just finished Ordinary People by Diana Evans, and it is utterly exquisite. What a writer she is - the depth of her insight, the grace of her sentences' Elizabeth Day, Twitter
Thoughtful and intelligently observed.. Evans's delicate prose weaves issues of racial identity and politics into the narrative so that they never feel heavy-handed...a deftly observed, elegiac portrayal of modern marriage, and the private – often painful – quest for identity and fulfilment in all its various guises * Observer *
Ordinary People...is very insightful… a detailed, well observed description of modern marriage -- David Nicholls * Good Housekeeping *
It could easily be reimagined for the screen, though the film would not capture the sheer energy and effervescence of Evans’s funny, sad, magnificent prose * Guardian *
Diana Evans’s fiction is emotionally intelligent, dark, funny, moving. The sheer energy in her novels is enthralling. A brilliant craftswoman, a master of the form, she makes the reader ask important questions of themselves and makes them laugh at the same time -- Jackie Kay
Achieves a moody, velvety atmosphere, as though events were unfolding under amber-tinted bulbs...offers a precise sketch of the British black middle class, with a daring fifth-act twist -- Katy Waldman * New Yorker *
Evans gives us romance going cold with just as pitiless a precision as Flaubert in Madame Bovary... Evans's prose is magnificent: it's as if she measured each sentence, trimmed the excess weight, then fitted it into place * Daily Telegraph *
One of the very many things that makes this book exceptional is the even-handed sympathy and unflinching fidelity with which Evans charts the changing weather both of her protagonists’ emotions and family life. She excels at dialogue and she’s also a soulful lyrical chronicler of London in all its moods and guises * Daily Mail *
I’m currently very much enjoying Diana Evans’s novel Ordinary People, which takes a forensic look at the pleasures and perils of marriage and parenting and modern London living -- Sarah Waters * Guardian, Best Summer Books *
Ordinary People offers a unique insight into the complexities and the challenges of modern life, identity and that lovely little thing we call love. From the moment I started to read it I was absolutely gripped - that’s how good it is. It is a beautifully crafted, honest exploration of how relationships are forged and deconstructed, and how the everyday and the remarkable can exist side by side. * Benjamin Zephaniah, South Bank Sky Arts Awards 2019 *
Diana Evans is the author of the novels 26a, The Wonder, Ordinary People and A House for Alice. She was the inaugural winner of the Orange Award for New Writers for 26a, which was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel, the Guardian First Book, the Commonwealth Best First Book and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Ordinary People won the 2019 South Bank Sky Arts Award for Literature and was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Rathbones Folio Prize, the Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, for which A House for Alice was also a finalist. A former dancer, she is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, her journalism and nonfiction appearing in Time magazine, the Guardian, Vogue and the Financial Times among others. She lives in London.
www.diana-evans.com
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781784707248 |
| ISBN 10 | 1784707244 |
| Title | Ordinary People |
| Author | Diana Evans |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Vintage Publishing |
| Year published | 2019-03-07 |
| Number of pages | 352 |
| Prizes | Short-listed for Orwell Prize 2019 (UK), Short-listed for Womens Prize for Fiction 2019 (UK), Long-listed for Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Awards 2019 (UK) |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |