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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... rings of mushroom enlivened the yellowing graveyard grass. The cemetery, conveniently placed next to the grim fortress of the turn-of-the-century hospital, was a favourite walk for courting couples, for old men with dogs, for mothers ...
... rings of mushroom enlivened the yellowing graveyard grass. The cemetery, conveniently placed next to the grim fortress of the turn-of-the-century hospital, was a favourite walk for courting couples, for old men with dogs, for mothers ...
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... ring finger slowly in the light as though displaying the refractions of an imagined diamond. Rowena lusted for a solitaire. She was lounging, one leg curled beneath her, the other provocatively extended. But there is nobody here to ...
... ring finger slowly in the light as though displaying the refractions of an imagined diamond. Rowena lusted for a solitaire. She was lounging, one leg curled beneath her, the other provocatively extended. But there is nobody here to ...
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... ring Seb when she gets back to her hotel room. At least she will have something new to tell him about. Seb has been getting her down horribly of late. She does not know what to do about Seb. She doesn't know how she could have let him ...
... ring Seb when she gets back to her hotel room. At least she will have something new to tell him about. Seb has been getting her down horribly of late. She does not know what to do about Seb. She doesn't know how she could have let him ...
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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