Book description
Set in Britain during the 1950s, this moving and evocative novel
follows the intertwined fates of people crossing boundaries in their
lives. As a teenager in the small northern town of Wigton, Joe
Richardson falls in love with Rachel, just when her life is about to be
uprooted. While his parents, Sam and Ellen, face the frontiers of middle
age, Joe finds himself drawn by the intoxicating world outside home, and
swept into situations that seem beyond his control. Vividly conveying
the spirit of the mid-century and the profound social changes taking
place at the time, this is a masterly successor to the award-winning THE
SOLDIER'S RETURN and A SON OF WAR. Melvyn Bragg's first novel, FOR
WANT OF A NAIL, was published in 1965 and since then his novels have
included THE HIRED MAN, for which he won the Time/Life Silver Pen Award,
WITHOUT A CITY WALL, winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, CREDO, THE
MAID OF BUTTERMERE and THE SOLDIER'S RETURN, which was published to huge
critical acclaim in 1999 and won the WHSmith Literary Award. He has also
written several works of non-fiction including SPEAK FOR ENGLAND, an
oral history of the twentieth century, RICH, a biography of Richard
Burton, ON GIANTS' SHOULDERS, a history of science based on his BBC
radio series, THE ADVENTURE OF ENGLISH, 12 BOOKS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD,
IN OUR TIME and THE SOUTH BANK SHOW: FINAL CUT. He was born in 1939 and
educated at Wigton's Nelson Thomlinson School and at Oxford where he
read history. He is President of the National Campaign for the Arts, and
in 1998 he was made a life peer. He won an Academy Fellowship at the
BAFTA Television Awards in 2010.
