After fifty years in the wilderness of London, Alice wants to live out her days in the land of her birth. But her children are divided on whether she stays or goes . . .<\/b><\/p>\n
‘Heart and humour in abundance . . . The people on the page are real and raw’ The Times<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
In the wake of their father’s death, the imagined stability of the family begins to fray. Meanwhile youngest daughter Melissa has never let go of a love she lost, and Michael in return, even within the sturdy walls of his marriage to the sparkling Nicole, is haunted by the failed perfection of the past. As Alice’s final decision draws closer, all that is hidden between Melissa and her sisters, Michael and Nicole, rises to the surface . . .<\/p>\n
Set against the shadows of a city and a country in turmoil, Diana Evans’s ordinary people confront fundamental questions. How should we raise our children? How to do right by our parents? And how, in the midst of everything, can we satisfy ourselves?<\/p>\n
‘In [this] sequel to Ordinary People<\/i>, a series of subtly-drawn domestic vignettes adds up to a state-of-the-nation masterpiece’ Harper’s Bazaar<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
‘A gorgeous novel<\/b> from one of our most outstanding writers’ Bernardine Evaristo<\/b><\/p>\n
‘A wise, tender novel’ Monica Ali<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Alice wants to go home to die but isn’t certain when this will be. Her three daughters are divided on whether she stays or goes, and tasked with realising her dream of a house in Nigeria, conflict stirs and old wounds rise to the surface. Meanwhile, their father wanders the flames of purgatory, unable to pass into the light. Will Alice get back home and complete the circle of her life, or will London be her final refuge? Melissa, to her mother’s regret, is long separated from Michael who’s moved on to new love. Yet he still wonders if he’ll ever know anyone the way he knew Melissa, and she in turn is nostalgic for their once safe haven. Held together by their two children, it seems their own circle is not quite broken. Set against the shadows of Grenfell and a country in crisis, these people are faced with fundamental questions about who they are, what they want and where, and with whom, they want to be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[216],"product_tag":[127],"class_list":["post-98274","product","type-product","status-publish","product_cat-fiction-hardback","product_tag-modern-contemporary-fiction-post-c-1945","pa_book_author-evans-diana","pa_cover-hardback","pa_dewey-823-92-edition23","pa_edition-hardback-original","pa_imprint-chatto-windus","pa_language-english","pa_pages-8497","pa_publisher-chatto-windus","pa_readership-general-trade-code-k","first","onbackorder","taxable","shipping-taxable","purchasable","product-type-simple"],"yoast_head":"\n