Family Pb [Paperback]

Susan Hill (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 22, 1990

The author has written many books, including "I'm the King of the Castle" which won the Somerset Maugham Prize and "The Bird of Night" which won the Whitbread Award. This is the true story of her quest for motherhood, and the death of her daughter, at five weeks old.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

British author Hill ( Shakespeare Country ) writes with exquisite sensitivity on the worlds of meaning in the word "family." She relates her life before and after marriage to Stanley Wells, a professor, and their joy in their first child, Jessica. A second daughter, born prematurely, survived only 33 days; Hill makes Imogen's brief life unforgettable and the parents' wrenching loss palpable. They later find great comfort in the birth of Clemency and in their memory of their cherished "lily of a day." This is a book that speaks to us about the need for love and hope in the fight against despair. First serial to Woman magazine.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Readers of The Magic Apple Tree (Holt, 1983), Hill's description of a year with her Shakespeare-scholar husband and their young daughter in the English village of Barley, will find a more intensely personal portrait of the author in this story of Imogen, Hill's second child. Born three months prematurely, Imogen was treated with tenderness and heroic measures in the Special Care Baby Unit of the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, where she died at the age of five weeks. This heart-wrenching yet clear-eyed tale of hope and anguish is written to help other women "in the throes of trying to have a child," women who are "vulnerable, afraid, depressed, bewildered, tired and isolated." To them she gives a "message of hope that, however awful the disasters that may have struck them, however many the setbacks, things so often do go right in the end." Highly recommended for public library collections.
- Marcia G. Fuchs, Guilford Free Lib., Ct.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (February 22, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140108866
• ISBN-13: 978-0140108866
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,594,355 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Lyrical, affecting, November 7, 2007

By 

Annag Chandler "Crane & Dragon" (Austin, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Family (Hardcover)

I read this book many years ago and it has stayed with me, both for the profound tragedy of the short life of the author's second child but also for the tenderness of her language in describing her "lily of a day". She has crafted a lyrical testament to the power of love, and life, however short.