Behind the Scenes at the Museum

Atkinson's notoriously scarce first book, an epic family chronicle that received the Whitbread Book of the Year Award. This is the Book People reprint edition, nearly identical to the first edition but with a price of L15.99 rather than L14.99 and with The Book People reference on the copyright page.

"I exist!" exclaims Ruby Lennox upon her conception in 1951, setting the tone for this humorous and poignant first novel in which Ruby at once celebrates and mercilessly skewers her middle-class English family. Peppered with tales of flawed family traits passed on from previous generations, Ruby's narrative examines the lives in her disjointed clan, which revolve around the family pet shop. But beneath the antics of her philandering father, her intensely irritable mother, her overly emotional sisters, and a gaggle of eccentric relatives are darker secrets--including an odd "feeling of something long forgotten"--that will haunt Ruby for the rest of her life. Kate Atkinson earned a Whitbread Prize in 1995 for this fine first effort.