The Grown-Ups - Softcover

Glendinning, Victoria

2.94

35 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0743232186 ISBN 13: 9780743232180

Publisher: Scribner, 2003

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'There are no grown-ups.' Everyone in this wickedly entertaining novel, whatever their age, bullies or deceives or adores someone else, in the merciless playgrounds of London flats, country villages, television studios and conferences. At the centre of it all is Leo Ulm, social scientist and media guru, who magnetizes his wives, lovers and friends with his fading brilliance. He obsesses them all, including clear-eyed Clara, though she may often wish he were dead. The god of his own universe, Leo is monstrously vain and arrogant - until something happens which leaves all the women in his life in shock. Then, perhaps, Clara begins to grow up....

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About the Author:

Victoria Glendinning is the award-winning biographer of Elizabeth Bowen, Leonard Woolf, Anthony Trollope, Edith Sitwell, Vita Sackville-West, Rebecca West and Jonathan Swift. Her novels, The Grown-Ups, Electricity and Flight, were critical and commercial successes. She divides her time between London, Provence and Ireland.

From Publishers Weekly:

In her fiction debut, the renowned British biographer ( Rebecca West ; Vita ) takes an astringent look at the lives of seemingly sophisticated "grown-ups" who are capable of childlike behavior when obsessed by love or lust. Martha, Alice and Clara, friends since boarding school, are in love with Dr. Leo Ulm, "the famous social philosopher" and charismatic TV and lecture-circuit star. Martha is married to him, Alice is the wife of his blind son from his first marriage, and Clara is unable to commit herself to her lover Harry because she adulates Leo. (Charlotte, Leo's first wife, still longs for him as well.) All are aware that Leo is egocentric, childish and demanding, but they live for his praise and one of his endearingly crooked smiles. In scenes shot with wry humor, Glendinning focuses on the few months prior to Leo's premature death, an event that brings profound changes to the lives of the heroines. In crisp, colloquial prose ("There's more to love than fucking," the novel's opening sentence reads), Glendinning examines men's attitudes toward women--and vice versa--in the era of women's lib. This is effective to a point: Glendinning is neither as insightful as Margaret Drabble (like Drabble, she makes acidic references to Thatcher's England and indulges in ironic asides)--nor as gleefully wicked as Fay Weldon. The novel has some fine moments, however, and in general is a diverting read. BOMC and QPB selections.
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