About this title: In a red brick mansion block off the Marylebone Road, Vivien, a sensitive, bookish girl grows up sealed off from both past and present by her timid refugee parents. Then one morning a glamorous uncle appears, dressed in a mohair suit, with a diamond watch on his wrist and a girl in a leopard-skin hat on his arm. Why is Uncle Sandor so violently ...
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Description: Good. Former Library book. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Scribner Book Company
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9781439142363ISBN:143914236X
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Pages in nearly like new condition. Cover shows some slight edgewear. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 293 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Scribner
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9781439142363ISBN:143914236X
Description: Good. Standard used condition. May have light reading or storage wear. All orders processed within 2 business days. Ships from Foxboro MA. read more
Description: Good. 2008-Paperback----Used-Good-Hall Street Books proudly ships from Brooklyn, NY. All orders are processed and shipped within 24 hours, M-F. 100% money back No-Worry guarantee with expedited delivery and delivery confirmation available. read more
Description: New. Orders placed after Dec. 7 cannot be guaranteed delivery before Christmas. GREAT BUY. Brand New From US Distributor. WE ARE A 5 STAR SELLER with OVER 3, 500, 000 BOOKS SOLD. read more
Description: Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Virago Press Ltd
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9781844085408ISBN:1844085406
Description: Good. This book is in GOOD overall condition. It shows signs of having been read and has general light wear to the cover, spine and pages. read more
Description: Good. Ships from the UK. Former Library book. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Your purchase also supports literacy charities. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Virago Press Ltd
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9781844085415ISBN:1844085414
Description: Good. This is an EX LIBRARY copy with all the usual stamps, marks etc. The inside flysheet has been tidily removed. This book is in GOOD overall condition. It shows signs of having been read and has general light wear to the cover, spine and pages. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Virago Press Ltd
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9781844085415ISBN:1844085414
Description: Good. **SHIPPED FROM UK** We believe you will be completely satisfied with our quick and reliable service. All orders are dispatched as swiftly as possible! Buy with confidence! read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Virago Press Ltd
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9781844085415ISBN:1844085414
Description: Good. **SHIPPED FROM UK** We believe you will be completely satisfied with our quick and reliable service. All orders are dispatched as swiftly as possible! Buy with confidence! read more
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Scribner
Date Published: 2008-11-25
ISBN-13:9781439142363ISBN:143914236X
Description: NEW. Softcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9781439142363. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Scribner
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9781439142363ISBN:143914236X
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Scribner
Date Published: 2008-11-25
ISBN-13:9781439143193ISBN:1439143196
Description: Very Good in Like New jacket. Ex-library has clear mylar cover and usual library markings. Pages are clean and in excellent condition. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Scribner
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9781439143193ISBN:1439143196
Description: New. NEW, unread book, publisher overstock-FAST SHIPPING! Our savvy customers know Purple Turtle has BEST PRICES AND BEST SERVICE! Satisfaction guaranteed! read more
"The daughter of Hungarian Jewish refugees in London learns about her family's background after a series of interviews with a disgraced uncle. This novel takes a surprisingly forgiving view of the activities of a slumlord and pimp (somehow seen as byproducts of the indomitable human spirit in tough times). There are a number of grammatical errors in this book which I cannot believe are intentional and which made it difficult to read--and also difficult to reconcile with the fact that the book was short-listed for the Booker prize.
On the other hand there are a couple of paragraphs about playing solitaire ("Patience") during a period of depression and isolation that if found wonderful."
"The Clothes on Their Backs, by Linda Grant is a story of a first generation American woman's search for her family's past, something her parents have deliberately kept from her. Isolated in their British flat, her parents keep a kind of old-world mixed with fear outlook on life.
Growing up in the 60's and 70's of such parents, the narrator naturally begins to explore her world in a way that horrifies her parents, even if much of it is kept secret from them.
She gravitates towards her much disapproved of uncle and learns of the country and family her father has come from but never speaks of.
Given this premise, I expected what she discovers to be more sensational. Too, much of what she goes through is put forward as it is experienced--happening without much explanation or redemption. There is much in this book that is left unexplored--her parents are never forthcoming in emotion or explanation. She is forced to internalize things through her estranged uncle's eyes.
As someone who likes to read meaning and metaphor into things, this book was less than satisfying. It has a very post-modern feel to it. Even the most repulsive revelations and occurrences are very matter-of-fact, and while the author attempts to close the circle, so to speak, it it not done successfully."
"Near the ending of the book, Miranda tells us "The clothes you wear are a metamorphosis. They change you from the outside in." All throughout the book The Clothes On Their Backs, clothes play a big part in the story of Miranda, daughter of Hungarian Jewish immigrants, and, specifically, niece of the notorious slum lord of 60s London, Sándor Kovacs.
This was the time of English punk music and fashion. Unfortunately for Miranda she was stuck with a headful of corkscrews and hair above her lip. Still, she managed to get married to an blond upper-class Englishman, Alexander, from her university. But, as her luck would have it, she returned home after their honeymoon, to her parent's Benson Court apartment, sans husband. He had died there unexpectedly, from a "ghastly accident". Later, when she took up with another Englishman, this time from the lower ranks, who work in the railways, she revealed that she had been then with child and had an abortion.
As per usual with those times, in the 60s, disaffected young people like her dressed like punks. But she was distinguished from those, like her, who pierced their bodies and wore their hair in spikes and in high colours, and from others who shaved their heads and wore laced-up leather boots, who hated anybody who were not white. They were the skinheads, who menaced Eunice, the black girlfriend of Miranda's uncle, Sándor.
Most of the book tells of Sándor's life story, which he recorded, into tapes, for Miranda to transcribe into an autobiography. While Miranda was under his employ, she was known to Sándor as Vivien, when they met in park. Sándor would recount to her how he had been wrongly sent to prison for abusing his tenants, and for being a pimp. Peppered within Sándor's tales are people like Eunice, with whom he fell in love, his estranged brother, Miranda's father, Miranda's mother, and Claude the tenant whose throat he nearly slashed after Miranda had a row with him.
The ending is very apropos to the clothes theme. It's thirty years since Sándor's death, after his arrest for slicing Claude. Miranda was collecting the tapes and notebooks about Sándor's life and passing them to Eunice, who now sold clothes in a shop. They had tea together, and she left, seeing her for the last time, with a new dress: "A new dress. Is that all it takes to make a new beginning, this shred of dyed cloth, shaped into the form of a woman's body? Our vulnerability suddenly touched me, all our terrible, moving weaknesses contained in a jacket, a skirt, a pair of shoes."
Linda Grant writes, intelligently, and empathetically, about how we all want to take on a better semblance (Miranda spoke with a posh accent, a consequence of university), a better life (Jewish immigrants, like Sándor and Miranda's parents, and Eunice, rise above poverty and prejudice)."
"What a disappointment! This book was shortlisted for the Mann Booker Prize so I figured it was a good bet. Instead, the story was really, really predictable. This is just another coming of age, child of holocaust survivors story, the wrinkle here being the immigrant parents don't tell their daughter about their past at all, and she discovers their history through a rogue uncle she meets when she's a young adult. The plot telegraphed all it's 'surprises' from the get-go. Some of the writing was lovely, even graceful, but overall, not worth the time."
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