The Free-Range Bookclub
Bookclubbers without boundaries in Nelson, New Zealand
The Northern Clemency – Philip Hensher
READ FOR BOOKERTHON
Covering 1974 to 1996, The Northern Clemency is a portrait of an era, a novel concerned with the lives of ordinary people and history on the move
♥ “The Northern Clemency features two Sheffield families, the Glovers and the Sellers, and tells the story of their everyday lives over a 20-year span.
“Cooking of meals, gardening, family arguments, gossip and relationships fill the pages. There is no surprising plot twist as the events that occur are the things that happen to people every day: emigration, retirement, illness, marriage, all normal events in life. Several characters die, and no being eaten by a shark is not all that usual but still, the book the is very realistic, with the author detailing every thought and every move of the nine main characters over 736 pages.
“Set in Manchester the book apparently contains events and locations accurate to the time and place to add to the believability.
If you don’t say anything it can’t become important, but if you say it everyone’s ever after got to walk round it like a pile of rocks in the living room.
♥ “This book encapsulates an era and follows the lives two suburban families living in the same street. The true-to-life characters are highly detailed, from the main personalities through to the cast of minor characters. Births, deaths and marriages are in high supply and the detail with which it is all narrated is what made this large novel addictive.” – Rachel
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Published 2008
Harper Collins
736 pages
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