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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... waiting expectantly. The side door opens, and in shuffles a short stout old woman. She has been out to the toilet. People nod at her as she makes her way back to her seat. She is well known to most of the congregation. She ignores their ...
... waiting expectantly. The side door opens, and in shuffles a short stout old woman. She has been out to the toilet. People nod at her as she makes her way back to her seat. She is well known to most of the congregation. She ignores their ...
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... waiting for Dr Robert Hawthorn to press the Start Button. Dr Robert Hawthorn, a little shining man of the future, as yet unborn, will be a direct matrilineal connection of Bessie Bawtry, however unlikely that connection might seem. Dr ...
... waiting for Dr Robert Hawthorn to press the Start Button. Dr Robert Hawthorn, a little shining man of the future, as yet unborn, will be a direct matrilineal connection of Bessie Bawtry, however unlikely that connection might seem. Dr ...
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... waiting by her sickbed to pounce like a vulture of salvation upon these signs of weakness and of grace. The Bawtrys, chapel-goers though they were, were not a religious family. The Bawtry bed was the best piece of furniture in the house ...
... waiting by her sickbed to pounce like a vulture of salvation upon these signs of weakness and of grace. The Bawtrys, chapel-goers though they were, were not a religious family. The Bawtry bed was the best piece of furniture in the house ...
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... waiting for so long, after lying on a couch for so many years of waiting, like the Lady of Shallot? Had it been a shock to the nervous system? Had it hurt} What had it felt like, to escape from a darkened overfurnished Victorian ...
... waiting for so long, after lying on a couch for so many years of waiting, like the Lady of Shallot? Had it been a shock to the nervous system? Had it hurt} What had it felt like, to escape from a darkened overfurnished Victorian ...
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... 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 universities were overproducing ...
... 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 universities were overproducing ...
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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