The Fifth Child (Paperback)

by Doris Lessing (Author)
Key Phrases: Ben Harriet

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
The married couple in this novel pull off a remarkable achievement: They purchase a three-story house with oodles of bedrooms, and, on a middle-class income, in the '70s, fill it to the brim with happy children and visiting relatives. Their holiday gatherings are sumptuous celebrations of life and togetherness. And then the fifth child arrives. He's just a child--he's not supernatural. But is he really human? This is an elegantly written tale that the New York Times called "a horror story of maternity and the nightmare of social collapse . . . a moral fable of the genre that includes Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and George Orwell's 1984."

From Publishers Weekly
A smug, conservative couple's fifth child (after four model children) inspires fear and horror. "The implications of this slim, gripping work are ominous," wrote PW. Lessing indicts those in authority who refuse to acknowledge responsibility for the violence inherent in mankind.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (May 14, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679721827
• ISBN-13: 978-0679721826
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #17,330 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Fifth Child, May 15, 2002

By	Rachel Booth "solopt" (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews

This book is one of the most thought provoking books I've ever read. It really made me think about my own family and also about other people's family values.
Doris May Lessing was most diffinately put a moral into this story that over the course of the book is hard to figure out but in the end is very clear. I believe the book is really about society and how it turns away and tries to forget about the abnormal or strange.
I loved the way Doris May Lessing wrote this book. It is written in a very straight forward way. If this book has any flaws, it is the lack of character development.
I would recomend this book but I'm not sure to who.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lessing again turns the ordinary into the extraordinary, June 28, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Fifth Child (Hardcover)

I was surprised to find the "experts" listing "The Fifth Child" in a horror category. This is Lessing as we have come to know her style of bringing you into the characters' lives quickly. You find yourself passing judgements alongside the fictional characters. Though the book starts as a dream of being different by upholding the traditional values of family, it quickly turns into an understanding of the dynamics of family and friends who, facing an unknown, turn their backs and pass judgement on a loving couple who soon turn their backs on each other to preserve each one's value system. A family torn apart by what is considered the "curse" of the fifth child to this family who wanted children to the rafters, is a family you can identify with. A discovery into the heart of human, and perhaps "un-human" experiences of dear Mother Nature. I read it in an afternoon and wanted more.

16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A thought-provoking book, September 4, 1999

By A Customer

Doris Lessing's "The Fifth Child" will be loved by some and hated by others, but it's hard to be ambivalent about a book that evokes such strong emotions in its readers. The premise of the book--how family, friends, and distant relatives deal with the birth of Ben, the fifth child of David and Harriet Lovatt--is soon overshadowed by the reader's own feelings about the characters and the values each one represents. This one is definitely worth a read. Even if you walk away hating it, it will have challenged your perception of "normalcy" and how society should deal with people who "aren't like us".