Imprint: Chatto & Windus
Published: 05/04/2018
ISBN: 9781784742164
Length: 336 Pages
Dimensions: 234mm x 24mm x 153mm
Weight: 439g
RRP: £12.99
** Selected by the New Yorker, Financial Times and New Statesman as a Book of the Year **
'Diana Evans is a lyrical and glorious writer; a precise poet of the human heart' Naomi Alderman
‘You can take a leap, do something off the wall, something reckless. It’s your last chance, and most people miss it.’
South London, 2008. Two couples find themselves at a moment of reckoning, on the brink of acceptance or revolution. Melissa has a new baby and doesn’t want to let it change her but, in the crooked walls of a narrow Victorian terrace, she begins to disappear. Michael, growing daily more accustomed to his commute, still loves Melissa but can’t quite get close enough to her to stay faithful. Meanwhile out in the suburbs, Stephanie is happy with Damian and their three children, but the death of Damian’s father has thrown him into crisis – or is it something, or someone, else? Are they all just in the wrong place? Are any of them prepared to take the leap?
Set against the backdrop of Barack Obama’s historic election victory, Ordinary People is an intimate, immersive study of identity and parenthood, sex and grief, friendship and aging, and the fragile architecture of love. With its distinctive prose and irresistible soundtrack, it is the story of our lives, and those moments that threaten to unravel us.
Imprint: Chatto & Windus
Published: 05/04/2018
ISBN: 9781784742164
Length: 336 Pages
Dimensions: 234mm x 24mm x 153mm
Weight: 439g
RRP: £12.99
"Diana Evans is a lyrical and glorious writer; a precise poet of the human heart"
"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"
"Ordinary People...is very insightful… a detailed, well observed description of modern marriage"
"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"
"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"