The Peppered MothThe prize-winning author of The Dark Flood Rises offers an “absorbing” portrait of three generations of women—inspired by her own family (The New York Times Book Review). In the early 1900s, young Bessie Bawtry grows up in a mining town in South Yorkshire, England. Unusually gifted, she longs to escape a life burdened by unquestioned tradition. She studies patiently, dreaming of the day when she will take the entrance exam for Cambridge and leave her narrow world. A generation later, Bessie’s daughter Chrissie feels a similar impulse to expand her horizons, which she in turn passes on to her own daughter. Nearly a century after that, Bessie’s granddaughter finds herself listening to a lecture on genetics and biological determinism. She has returned to Breaseborough and wonders at the families who remained in the humble little town where Bessie grew up. Confronted with what would have been her life had her grandmother stayed, she finds herself faced with difficult questions. Is she really so different from the plain South Yorkshire locals? As she soon learns, the past has a way of reasserting itself—not unlike the peppered moth that was once thought to be nearing extinction but is now enjoying a sudden and unexplained resurgence. With The Peppered Moth, the acclaimed author of The Seven Sisters conjures a captivating work of semi-fiction, grappling with her memory of her own mother and the indelible mark of family and heredity. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 16
Page
... Bert Bawtry—his christened name was George, but for some forgotten reason he was always addressed as Bert—had a talent or two. He was good with the electrics. This was just as well, for he was by trade an electrical engineer. He worked ...
... Bert Bawtry—his christened name was George, but for some forgotten reason he was always addressed as Bert—had a talent or two. He was good with the electrics. This was just as well, for he was by trade an electrical engineer. He worked ...
Page
... Bert Bawtry. And, all things considered, she was. She had married late, and cautiously, and she was satisfied with what she had got. Ellen and Bert Bawtry were not bad people or bad parents. They tried. They were respectable. They did ...
... Bert Bawtry. And, all things considered, she was. She had married late, and cautiously, and she was satisfied with what she had got. Ellen and Bert Bawtry were not bad people or bad parents. They tried. They were respectable. They did ...
Page
Margaret Drabble. ate a lot. Both Bert and Ellen were stout, as people of their age were in those days. Prospects for young Bessie, with her refined nature and her great expectations, did not seem too good on that October evening long ...
Margaret Drabble. ate a lot. Both Bert and Ellen were stout, as people of their age were in those days. Prospects for young Bessie, with her refined nature and her great expectations, did not seem too good on that October evening long ...
Page
... Bert Bawtry alone had ventured far into the past, and he had chosen well, for the bed was an object of virtue. (It is a pity Bert did not live to see The Antiques Roadshow. He would have enjoyed it. He was a man of curious interests ...
... Bert Bawtry alone had ventured far into the past, and he had chosen well, for the bed was an object of virtue. (It is a pity Bert did not live to see The Antiques Roadshow. He would have enjoyed it. He was a man of curious interests ...
Page
... Bert Bawtry fell in love with their phallic Royal Enfield and its rattling sidecar: Bert would polish and tinker for hours of happiness, and mending punctures was to him a joy. Already, in Bessie's young womanhood, the heroic journeys ...
... Bert Bawtry fell in love with their phallic Royal Enfield and its rattling sidecar: Bert would polish and tinker for hours of happiness, and mending punctures was to him a joy. Already, in Bessie's young womanhood, the heroic journeys ...
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Auntie Dora babies Bert Bessie Barron Bessie Bawtry Bessie's boys Breasebor Breaseborough Cambridge Chrissie's coal Cotterhall dark daugh daughter dead death Donald Sinclair Dora's Dr Hawthorn earth Edith Sitwell Ellen Bawtry eyes Faro Gaulden Faro's father Fiona George Bellew Georgette Heyer Gertrude Wadsworth girl glass Hammervale happy Highcross Holderfield Jenny Pargiter Joe Barron knew listened live look Lyme Regis married Miss Heald mother never Nick Gaulden Nick's night Northam once peppered moth Peter Cudworth ring Robert and Chrissie Rose round Rowena says Faro Sebastian seemed sister sister Dora Slotton Road smell South Yorkshire Spanish flu stare Stella Steve Nieman story sure T. S. Eliot tell thing thought tried waiting waste watch woman women wonder young