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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... knew that, whatever the cost, she must escape or die. The structure of DNA had not been discovered when Bessie Bawtry crouched under the table and brooded upon flight and murder. Genes were not then the fashion, as they are now. The ...
... knew that, whatever the cost, she must escape or die. The structure of DNA had not been discovered when Bessie Bawtry crouched under the table and brooded upon flight and murder. Genes were not then the fashion, as they are now. The ...
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... knew or dared to ask. The extortion was resented, especially as it was coyly described in the chapel records as a 'Glad Offering', but the moment of smashing did provide a thrill of rebellious, destructive delight, prefiguring the ...
... knew or dared to ask. The extortion was resented, especially as it was coyly described in the chapel records as a 'Glad Offering', but the moment of smashing did provide a thrill of rebellious, destructive delight, prefiguring the ...
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... knew, than any of them could have known. Against known dangers, Ellen Bawtry warned and protected her daughters. The world beyond the wooden cave was full of menace. Steep steps, runaway horses, spiked railings, epidemics of whooping ...
... knew, than any of them could have known. Against known dangers, Ellen Bawtry warned and protected her daughters. The world beyond the wooden cave was full of menace. Steep steps, runaway horses, spiked railings, epidemics of whooping ...
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... knew it was there. Her father read the paper. Her mother pegged a rug. Her sister Dora quietly slept. Is Bessie to be our heroine? Something of interest must happen to her, or we would not have wasted all this time making her ...
... knew it was there. Her father read the paper. Her mother pegged a rug. Her sister Dora quietly slept. Is Bessie to be our heroine? Something of interest must happen to her, or we would not have wasted all this time making her ...
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... knew what she was praying for, and in the end she got it. Whether she was grateful for what she got remains to be seen. But we can, at this stage in the story, predict that despite her delicate constitution, she may well live to a ripe ...
... knew what she was praying for, and in the end she got it. Whether she was grateful for what she got remains to be seen. But we can, at this stage in the story, predict that despite her delicate constitution, she may well live to a ripe ...
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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