A "New York Times Book Review" Notable Book of the Year It was the year after Chappaquiddick, and all spring Carmel McBain had watery dreams about the disaster. Now she, Karina, and Julianne were escaping the dreary English countryside for a London University hall of residence. Interspersing accounts of her current position as a university student with recollections of her childhood and an ever difficult relationship with her longtime schoolmate Karina, Carmel reflects on a generation of girls desiring the power of men, but fearful of abandoning what is expected and proper. When these bright but confused young women land in late 1960s London, they are confronted with a slew of new preoccupations--sex, politics, food, and fertility--and a pointless grotesque tragedy of their own. Hilary Mantel's magnificent novel examines the pressures on women during the early days of contemporary feminism to excel--but not be "too" successful--in England's complex hierarchy of class and status.
- ISBN10 0670859222
- ISBN13 9780670859221
- Publish Date 2 March 1995
- Publish Status Unknown
- Out of Print 14 May 1999
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
- Imprint Viking
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 256
- Language English