Name: Ordinary People
ISBN: 9781784707248

Diana Evans

La 4e de couv. indique : "Two couples find themselves at a moment of reckoning. Melissa has a new baby and doesn't want to let it change her. Damian has lost his father and intends not to let it get to him. Michael is still in love with Melissa but can't quite get close enough to her to stay faithful. Stephanie just wants to live a normal, happy life on the commuter belt with Damian and their three children but his bereavement is getting in the way."

Ordinary People

'Diana Evans is a lyrical and glorious writer; a precise poet of the human heart' Naomi Alderman 'You can take a leap, do something off the wall, something reckless. It's your last chance, and most people miss it.' South London, 2008. Two couples find themselves at a moment of reckoning, on the brink of acceptance or revolution. Melissa has a new baby and doesn't want to let it change her but, in the crooked walls of a narrow Victorian terrace, she begins to disappear. Michael, growing daily more accustomed to his commute, still loves Melissa but can't quite get close enough to her to stay faithful. Meanwhile out in the suburbs, Stephanie is happy with Damian and their three children, but the death of Damian's father has thrown him into crisis - or is it something, or someone, else? Are they all just in the wrong place? Are any of them prepared to take the leap? Set against the backdrop of Barack Obama's historic election victory, Ordinary Peopleis an intimate, immersive study of identity and parenthood, sex and grief, friendship and aging, and the fragile architecture of love. With its distinctive prose and irresistible soundtrack, it is the story of our lives, and those moments that threaten to unravel us.

Amanda Wells

I really liked this book. I loved the way it wove in such interesting details about each of the characters. I loved the way it wove the perspectives together, and so clearly showed how they were connected and disconnected. 

I also found it very clever how these narratives could easily become so many different stories - epic stories that you usually read books about - but stays in the world of 'ordinary people'. Even the extraordinary people in the background - Obama and Michael Jackson - are just people. 

I am grateful that this book made it on the Women's Prize for Fiction list, because I don't think I would have found it otherwise. How lucky I am!

Ordinary People

Reviews