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. |
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... lives with a virtuosity of language and insight that captivates every cell of your interest. Interweaving a riveting immediacy of story with a spirit of curiosity and inquiry, The Peppered Moth ultimately achieves an effect that is ...
... lives with a virtuosity of language and insight that captivates every cell of your interest. Interweaving a riveting immediacy of story with a spirit of curiosity and inquiry, The Peppered Moth ultimately achieves an effect that is ...
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... live, up there, in such coarse comforts, so unknowingly? She was alien. She was a changeling. She was of a finer breed. She could hear her father sucking on his pipe. Spittle, dottle, wet lungs, wet lips, wet whiskers. Unutterable ...
... live, up there, in such coarse comforts, so unknowingly? She was alien. She was a changeling. She was of a finer breed. She could hear her father sucking on his pipe. Spittle, dottle, wet lungs, wet lips, wet whiskers. Unutterable ...
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... lives. But if we were to find another tone, the heart might break. And then where would we be? What good would that do, Ellen Bawtry herself would be the first to ask. We might find ourselves obliged to weep. We might not be able to ...
... lives. But if we were to find another tone, the heart might break. And then where would we be? What good would that do, Ellen Bawtry herself would be the first to ask. We might find ourselves obliged to weep. We might not be able to ...
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... live to a ripe—or perhaps an unripe?—old age. There was a month or two in her early life when she looked as though she was not going to make it, for Bessie, like millions of others around the world, nearly died of the Spanish flu in the ...
... live to a ripe—or perhaps an unripe?—old age. There was a month or two in her early life when she looked as though she was not going to make it, for Bessie, like millions of others around the world, nearly died of the Spanish flu in the ...
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... live to see The Antiques Roadshow. He would have enjoyed it. He was a man of curious interests.) The bed was a four-poster, far too large for the room, but never mind that: it was a room of its own. Its hangings (original, and antique) ...
... live to see The Antiques Roadshow. He would have enjoyed it. He was a man of curious interests.) The bed was a four-poster, far too large for the room, but never mind that: it was a room of its own. Its hangings (original, and antique) ...
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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