We That Are Left - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1846556066 ISBN 13: 9781846556067

Publisher: Vintage Publishing, 2015

Synopsis

A New York Times Editors' Choice

A Washington Post “Notable Fiction Book of 2015”

 “[A] lavishly detailed historical novel that doesn’t just recreate the past but alters your perception of it.”—New York Times Book Review 

“As always, [Clark’s] environments are deliciously luxe. . . With splendid breadth and depth, We That Are Left accommodates an era’s worth of historical reverberations within the confines of its highly polished rooms.”—Washington Post
 
Growing up at Ellinghurst, their crumbling family estate, all three Melville children dream of escape. Headstrong Jessica yearns for the glitter and glamor of London while Phyllis longs to attend university. The adored Theo, meanwhile, eclipses everyone around him. None of the children take much notice of Oskar Grunewald, their mother’s science-obsessed godson, who instead seeks refuge in Ellinghurst’s enormous library.

But when the cataclysm of the Great War devastates the Melvilles’ world and reshapes their futures, Jessica and Phyllis must forge new paths in a world that no longer plays by the old rules. As Oskar is drawn reluctantly back into the Melville family fold, his life entwines with theirs in ways that will transform all of their futures forever.
 
In We That Are Left, Clare Clark brings us a new story of an old family whose reckoning with change will haunt and resonate for many generations.
 
“We That Are Left is still haunting me. It offers an utterly convincing sense of period; a story that tugs at you; characters who are surprising, tender, hurt; emotions crushed, misunderstood, exploding; on every page the unresolved intensity of real life.”—William Nicholson, author of Lovers of Amherst

About this title

From the Back Cover:

A New York Times Editors' Choice

A Washington Post “Notable Fiction Book of 2015”
 
“As always, [Clark’s] environments are deliciously luxe. . . With splendid breadth and depth, We That Are Left accommodates an era’s worth of historical reverberations within the confines of its highly polished rooms.”—Washington Post
 
Growing up at Ellinghurst, their crumbling family estate, all three Melville children dream of escape. Headstrong Jessica yearns for the glitter and glamor of London while Phyllis longs to attend university. The adored Theo, meanwhile, eclipses everyone around him. None of the children take much notice of Oskar Grunewald, their mother’s science-obsessed godson, who instead seeks refuge in Ellinghurst’s enormous library.

But when the cataclysm of the Great War devastates the Melvilles’ world and reshapes their futures, Jessica and Phyllis must forge new paths in a world that no longer plays by the old rules. As Oskar is drawn reluctantly back into the Melville family fold, his life entwines with theirs in ways that will transform all of their futures forever.
 
In We That Are Left, Clare Clark brings us a new story of an old family whose reckoning with change will haunt and resonate for many generations.
 
“We That Are Left is still haunting me. It offers an utterly convincing sense of period; a story that tugs at you; characters who are surprising, tender, hurt; emotions crushed, misunderstood, exploding; on every page the unresolved intensity of real life.”—William Nicholson, author of Lovers of Amherst

CLARE CLARK is the author of four novels, including The Great Stink, which was long-listed for the Orange Prize and was named a Washington Post Best Book of the Year, and Savage Lands, which was long-listed for the Orange Prize.
 

From the Inside Flap:

Clark expertly spins a story of people trying to work out who they are amid the wreckage of old social certainties. Acute and perceptive. Daily Mail

Two sisters, born into privilege, are forced to make their way in a world turned upside down by war. One man transforms them both.

1910. Jessica and Phyllis Melville havegrown up at Ellinghurst, a family estate fraught with secrets. A headstrong beauty, Jessica longs forLondon the glitter and glamour of debutantelife while bookish Phyllisdreams in vain of attending university. Into their midst walks Oskar Grunewald, a frequent visitor fascinated by the house but alternately tormented and ignored by the Melville children. Oskar seeks refuge in Ellinghurst s enormous library. Meanwhile Theo, the adored Melville brother, eclipses everyone around him.

The Great War arrives to devastate and reshape their world. In a country unrecognizable from the idylls of their youth, the Melville sisters struggle to forge new paths without the guidance of the old rules. But Oskar s life has become entwined with theirs once again, in ways both immediate and unimaginable-- that will change all of their futures.

With elegance and insight, in prose characteristically stirring and seductive (Economist) Clare Clark brings us a new story of a kind of old family whose reckoning with change will haunt and resonate for many generations.
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About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage Publishing
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1846556066
• ISBN 13: 9781846556067
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 464