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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... never sang to her children, for once upon a time, or so it was said, her husband had mocked her—once, once only—for singing out of tune. And she had never attempted a lullaby since. She kept an apologetic, a vindictive silence, and never ...
... never sang to her children, for once upon a time, or so it was said, her husband had mocked her—once, once only—for singing out of tune. And she had never attempted a lullaby since. She kept an apologetic, a vindictive silence, and never ...
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... never to be put to her. Emotions were not her forte. It was hard to say what her forte was. She is not even very good at pegging that peg rug. One cannot go far wrong with a peg rug made of coarse strips of old trousers and worn-out ...
... never to be put to her. Emotions were not her forte. It was hard to say what her forte was. She is not even very good at pegging that peg rug. One cannot go far wrong with a peg rug made of coarse strips of old trousers and worn-out ...
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... never get out of here. It was lucky, really, that Mrs Bawtry did not let Bessie play on the street. It was more dangerous out there than any of them knew, than any of them could have known. Against known dangers, Ellen Bawtry warned and ...
... never get out of here. It was lucky, really, that Mrs Bawtry did not let Bessie play on the street. It was more dangerous out there than any of them knew, than any of them could have known. Against known dangers, Ellen Bawtry warned and ...
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... never know, would never work it out. But again and again, throughout her life, she would dream of that staircase. A birth trauma, we now might call it. Will Bessie Bawtry ever learn this term? It seems unlikely, as she crouches in her ...
... never know, would never work it out. But again and again, throughout her life, she would dream of that staircase. A birth trauma, we now might call it. Will Bessie Bawtry ever learn this term? It seems unlikely, as she crouches in her ...
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... never been explained,' and now perhaps it never will be, though the whole episode continues to arouse curiosity. Seventy years later scientists were still as yet unsuccessfully attempting to analyse the nature of the virus by exhuming ...
... never been explained,' and now perhaps it never will be, though the whole episode continues to arouse curiosity. Seventy years later scientists were still as yet unsuccessfully attempting to analyse the nature of the virus by exhuming ...
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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