What Was Promised
Published on 29. January 2015
Book
Paperback/Softback
384 pages
978-1-4088-4092-4 (ISBN)
Description
London in the aftermath of war: children run wild on East End bombsites, while their elders strive for better lives in a country beggared by victory. Clarence and Bernadette Malcolm have come five thousand miles in search of prosperity, but find the Mother Country not at all as has been promised them; Solly and Dora Lazarus, too, are strangers in a strange land, struggling to belong even as they try to make sense of their past; and Michael and Mary Lockhart take with both hands all that the world owes them, wherever it leads them, whatever the cost. In the street markets and tenements of Bethnal Green the three families live and work together in uneasy harmony, until Michael shatters the balance between them, his hunger for betterment changing the courses of all their lives over decades and generations.
Reaching across forty years and capturing a city and a people in a time of tumultuous change, What Was Promised is a breathtaking novel by a master storyteller.
Reaching across forty years and capturing a city and a people in a time of tumultuous change, What Was Promised is a breathtaking novel by a master storyteller.
Reviews / Votes
What Was Promised vibrates with the polyphonic sounds of London in the aftermath of the war, carrying the reader through the hopes and needs of ensuing generations. Hill writes with magnificent poise, seducing us through the prism of lives in the book with his buoyant, mischievous prose * <b><i>Nikita Lalwani</b></i> * Beginning after the Second World War and ending 40 years on, this is a portrait of London and its citizens: grubby, thieving, vibrant, drawn from many continents and rendered poetic by Hill's prose * <b><i>Vogue</b></i> * Hill's writing has a stunning economy and control * <b><i>The Times</i></b> * Mr Hill's book has many strengths. First is the depiction of London itself ... Second is the dialogue, such as the louche fashion photographer telling a woman she's a "knockout" ... Third is a male writer's impressive depiction of female experience ... He deserves high praise * <b><i>Economist</b></i> * Hill has created a dazzling and deeply affecting portrait of a city struggling back to prosperity and of the resilience of its people. It is a novel that questions the idea of home, and what it means to belong, and should secure Hill's reputation as one of the outstanding writers of his generation * <b><i>Observer</i></b> *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 194 mm
Width: 122 mm
Thickness: 30 mm
Weight
420 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4088-4092-4 (9781408840924)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Tobias Hill
What Was Promised
E-Book
03/2014
1st Edition
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
€8.49
Available for download
Person
Tobias Hill was born in London. In 2003 the TLS nominated him as one the best young writers in Britain. In 2004 he was selected as one of the country's Next Generation poets and shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year. His collection of stories, Skin, won the Pen-Macmillan Prize for Fiction and was shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys/Mail on Sunday Prize. He died in 2023.
www.tobiashill.com
www.tobiashill.com