The Clothes on Their Backs |
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 | A rather insipid tale, though Grant is a good enough writer to hold the attention, it's hard to really say what 'The Clothes on Their Backs' is really about. Maybe there's some hugely deep inner meaning that I've completely missed. Although not a lot happens and it's not particularly complex, I still felt that it never really came together to make a consistent whole.
The central character, Vivien, I found very hard to empathise with. Even when tragedy touched her life it was hard to care. It wasn't that she was unpleasant, just rather uninteresting. Vivien's timid immigrant parents and larger-than-life uncle are more vivid characters although they were just a bit too extreme and contrasting to ring true.
The actual writing is good, with nice descriptive passages. The structure also works well. But the ending is rather hurried and out of keeping with the pace of the rest of the story, and the lack of feeling I had for the characters meant I felt remote from the story.
I ... read more.
Written by Linda Grant.
Published 07 February 2008.
Published by Virago Press Ltd.
rrp £11.99.
293 pages Paperback.
ISBN: 1844085414
ISBN-13: 9781844085415 | |
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