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The Clothes On Their Backs

Linda Grant

$24.99

Paperback

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English
Virago
01 June 2009
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 unwelcome in her parents' home?

This is a novel about survival - both banal and heroic - and a young woman who discovers the complications, even betrayals, that inevitably accompany the fierce desire to live. Set against the backdrop of a London from the 1950s to the present day, The Clothes on Their Backs is a wise and tender novel about the clothes we choose to wear, the personalities we dress ourselves in, and about how they define us all.

By:  
Imprint:   Virago
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
Dimensions:   Height: 196mm,  Width: 128mm,  Spine: 21mm
Weight:   212g
ISBN:   9781844085422
ISBN 10:   1844085422
Pages:   304
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Linda Grant is a novelist and journalist. She won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2000 and the Lettre Ulysses Prize for Literary Reportage in 2006. She writes for the Guardian, Telegraph and Vogue.

Reviews for The Clothes On Their Backs

The Clothes on Their Backs reflects on the human capacity for survival and renewal, on intractable differences and the shocking ease with which some individuals resort to violence. - Adelaide Advertiser Grant has written a compelling story, and she evokes the 1930s through to the 1970s extremely well, balancing an immediacy that is almost olfactory with a nostalgia that works like a faded Kodak print.' - The Age She skilfully stitches together a story about morality, identity and belonging with a captivating plot. The clothes are splendid minor characters. - Hobart Mercury Graphically set in 1970s London, and immersed in the business of private history, this is a highly readable book Grant is a talented storyteller who has something serious to say - The Weekend Australian Spanning the 1950s to the present day, this is a chronicle not only of a family but also of London s social fabric, an expanding patchwork of displaced communities and racial, political and religious tensions. - Good Reading Grant s seamless style illustrates the complexities of identity and empowerment. - The Big Issue Grant writes of with an observant and sympathetic eye. - Sun-Herald characters, who are each so complex and beautifully vivid that they could command novels all of their own - Time Out Sydney


  • Long-listed for Orange Prize 2008
  • Long-listed for Orange Prize 2008 (UK)
  • Long-listed for Orange Prize 2008.
  • Short-listed for Man Booker Prize 2008 (UK)
  • Short-listed for Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2008
  • Shortlisted for Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2008.
  • Winner of The South Bank Show Awards: Literature 2009
  • Winner of The South Bank Show Awards: Literature 2009.

See Also