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| Margaret Forster |
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Private Papers As discussed on Radio 4's Book Club with James Naughite. To Penelope Butler the family was all, the sole ambition of her adult life. Three of her four daughters, however, had different ideas. Rosemary rejected it; Jess was destroyed by it; Celia found it eluded her. Only Emily pursued her mother's idea, with disastrous results. Penelope has decided to write down the family story as it unfolds. But when Rosemary discovers these private papers she is enraged by her mother's distortions of the truth and proceeds to tell her own side of things. From D-Day on into the turbulent post-war years, a picture emerges not only of a single family in all its complexities, but also of the changing world that shaped their lives. 'This stuff of intimate family life is brilliantly presented, subtly and yet with unnerving directness' Susan Hill 'A brilliant, sometimes terrible novel about the generation war within a family, as witty and cool as it is heart-rending' Auberon Waugh in the Daily Mail 'Margaret Forster is stunningly good at lighting up the dark corners of maternal secrets' Company 'Painful...gripping...her "private" story reaches far beyond the merely personal' Observer 'For real insight on the psychology of a family, this is Margaret Forster's best novel yet' Options
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