Book description
Following 'A Change in Climate', this brilliant novel from the double
Man Booker prize-winning author of 'Wolf Hall' is a coming-of-age tale
set in Seventies London.
It is London, 1970. Carmel McBain, in her first term at university, has
cut free of her childhood roots in the north. Among the gossiping,
flirtatious girls of Tonbridge Hall, she begins her experiments in life
and love. But the year turns. The mini-skirt falls out of style and an
era of concealment begins. Carmel's world darkens, and tragedy waits in
the wings. 'The most powerful of her novels, a near-faultless
masterpiece of pathos, observation and feeling … She writes like an
angel.' Sunday Telegraph
'Hilary Mantel is a wonderfully unsurprised dissector of human
motivation, and in An Experiment in Love she has written a bleak tale
seamed with crackling wit.' Helen Dunmore, Observer
'Funny, tragic and wondefully perceptive, this is a book to be
treasured, for the sheer quality of its writing and for its honesty.' Independent
'A near-faultless masterpiece of pathos, observation and feeling … She
writes like an angel.' Sunday Telegraph
'Mantel writes prose of imperturbable aplomp, crisp with irony and
highlighted with deftly places, elegantly surprising images … she has a
penchant for caustic, spiky heroines and a sardonic ear for dialogue.'
Sunday Times
'My favourite novel of the year: An Experiment in Love is written with
subtle perceptiveness, sharp wit and canny wisdom' Margaret Forster, Independent
'Cool unsentimental, and unassumingly authoritative.' Anita Brookner, Spectator
'The time is 1970, and it is wonderfully well evoked … The skill with
which Mantel manages her time-shifts, the precision of her writing, the
acuteness of her observations, the seriousness of her themes, and the
way in which she weaves them into a coherant whole, make this an
unusually satisfying novel.' Allan Massie, Scotsman
'An Experiment in Love has much to say about its turbulant era, and is
replete with the atmosphere of the cusp, with the prospect of
irreversible change … It is also a profoundly sad novel, to which
Mantel's liberal sense of comedy and dazzling acuity for metaphor add an
almost excruciating flavour.' Rachel Cusk, The Times Hilary Mantel is
the author of thirteen books , including A PLACE OF GREATER SAFETY,
BEYOND BLACK, and the memoir GIVING UP THE GHOST. Her two most recent
novels, WOLF HALL and its sequel BRING UP THE BODIES have both been
awarded The Man Booker Prize - an unprecedented achievement.
