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
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... Cotterhall is now a warehouse. In other parts of England, churches and chapels have been deconsecrated and turned into private houses, public houses, restaurants. But there isn't the money for that kind of thing round here. There isn't ...
... Cotterhall is now a warehouse. In other parts of England, churches and chapels have been deconsecrated and turned into private houses, public houses, restaurants. But there isn't the money for that kind of thing round here. There isn't ...
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... Cotterhall, which lay a couple of miles upstream. It was smaller than Breaseborough, and considered itself a cut above it socially as well as geologically. It was possessed of limestone cliffs, an ancient ruined castle and a bluebell ...
... Cotterhall, which lay a couple of miles upstream. It was smaller than Breaseborough, and considered itself a cut above it socially as well as geologically. It was possessed of limestone cliffs, an ancient ruined castle and a bluebell ...
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... Cotterhall, and there was no reason why he should not be walking Alice home on a fine summer afternoon. The four young people greeted one another: they were obliged to do so, for a couple of hours earlier they had all been studying ...
... Cotterhall, and there was no reason why he should not be walking Alice home on a fine summer afternoon. The four young people greeted one another: they were obliged to do so, for a couple of hours earlier they had all been studying ...
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... Cotterhall, of course, and will remain there for decades to come. And it is towards Laburnum House, the home of the Barron family, that Ada and Bessie now make their way, not as shy schoolgirls, but as invited guests. Mrs Barron has ...
... Cotterhall, of course, and will remain there for decades to come. And it is towards Laburnum House, the home of the Barron family, that Ada and Bessie now make their way, not as shy schoolgirls, but as invited guests. Mrs Barron has ...
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... Cotterhall. This is a neighbourhood without an aristocracy, and with very little of a middle class: there is a public house in Breaseborough called the Wardale Arms, and the hospital, built in 1906, is called the Wardale Hospital, but ...
... Cotterhall. This is a neighbourhood without an aristocracy, and with very little of a middle class: there is a public house in Breaseborough called the Wardale Arms, and the hospital, built in 1906, is called the Wardale Hospital, but ...
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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