According to Mark: A Novel - Hardcover

Lively, Penelope

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0825303117 ISBN 13: 9780825303111

Publisher: Beaufort Books, 1985

Synopsis

Mark Lamming, writing a biography of Gilbert Strong, falls in love with Strong's granddaughter, Carrie, and thereby endangers his marriage and career

About this title

About the Author:

Penelope Lively was born in 1933 in Cairo and spent her childhood there, moving to England in the last year of World War II. She has written many prizewinning novels and collections of short stories for both adults and children, including the novel Moon Tiger, which won England's prestigious Booker Prize in England in 1987, and most recently Heat Wave. She lives in Oxfordshire and London.

From Publishers Weekly:

Despite its title, the book isn't gospel, nor does its eponymous hero invoke any power higher than middle age for his infatuation with Carrie Summers, the papers of whose renowned grandfather he is researching for a biography. Carrie, a charming, freckled, half-educated maverick, has turned the great man's estate into a garden center and is more interested in the needs of her flowers than to Mark Lamming's importunings. In the event, however, he persuades her to drive with him to France to interview her flighty mother; on the way they make love, an activity in which Carrie participates with pagan-like wholeheartedness. But when Mark's wife joins them, Carrie runs away to Paris, there to meet a man for whom she feels a yearning so uncontrollable that, newly tender and perceptive, she grieves for poor Mark. Thus summarized, this accomplished novel seems little more than a variant on the triangle theme, but its virtues are distinctive. Mark's torment is genuine, Carrie's awkward grace appealing, the situation is handled with a blend of sentiment and fun. Lively (Perfect Happiness, etc.) has the gift of making readers care about her characters; this novel was short-listed for the 1984 Booker Prize. November 15
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Beaufort Books
• Publication date: 1985
• ISBN 10: 0825303117
• ISBN 13: 9780825303111
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 217