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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... glass window at the top of Hall stairs; dark chocolate like the secret Meaning of the world in a corner cupboard: Three-quarter circle smooth as a child's Dreams and as far above reach... 'Loveless', the daughters said, years later when ...
... glass window at the top of Hall stairs; dark chocolate like the secret Meaning of the world in a corner cupboard: Three-quarter circle smooth as a child's Dreams and as far above reach... 'Loveless', the daughters said, years later when ...
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... Glass predated coal as an industry here. But the bottles produced were not wine bottles. Wine had disappeared with the Romans. It will make a comeback, but not for some decades. The Rose of Sharon, when Bessie eventually came to ...
... Glass predated coal as an industry here. But the bottles produced were not wine bottles. Wine had disappeared with the Romans. It will make a comeback, but not for some decades. The Rose of Sharon, when Bessie eventually came to ...
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... glass manufacturers and other prosperous tradesmen. The air was said to be good, up in Cotterhall. Oh, it had been pretty here once, when Bessie Bawtry's maternal ancestors had planted their crops and fed their beasts and drawn their ...
... glass manufacturers and other prosperous tradesmen. The air was said to be good, up in Cotterhall. Oh, it had been pretty here once, when Bessie Bawtry's maternal ancestors had planted their crops and fed their beasts and drawn their ...
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... glass, another product of which there is no shortage. This double defence is intended to prevent boys from breaking into the small orchard and raiding the apple trees and soft-fruit plot. But the house, behind its wall, is not hostile ...
... glass, another product of which there is no shortage. This double defence is intended to prevent boys from breaking into the small orchard and raiding the apple trees and soft-fruit plot. But the house, behind its wall, is not hostile ...
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... glass. But he was lying low, waiting for the right moment to confront his father. His father thought education a waste of time—he'd done all right without certificates, and set little store by schooling. In Ben Barron's view, the ...
... glass. But he was lying low, waiting for the right moment to confront his father. His father thought education a waste of time—he'd done all right without certificates, and set little store by schooling. In Ben Barron's view, the ...
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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