How It All Began: A Novel [Hardcover]

Penelope Lively (Author)

Book Description

Release date: January 5, 2012

A vibrant new novel from Penelope Lively-a wry, wise story about the surprising ways lives intersect.

When Charlotte Rainsford, a retired schoolteacher, is accosted by a petty thief on a London street, the consequences ripple across the lives of acquaintances and strangers alike. A marriage unravels after an illicit love affair is revealed through an errant cell phone message; a posh yet financially strapped interior designer meets a business partner who might prove too good to be true; an old-guard historian tries to recapture his youthful vigor with an ill-conceived idea for a TV miniseries; and a middle-aged central European immigrant learns to speak English and reinvents his life with the assistance of some new friends.

Through a richly conceived and colorful cast of characters, Penelope Lively explores the powerful role of chance in people's lives and deftly illustrates how our paths can be altered irrevocably by someone we will never even meet. Brought to life in her hallmark graceful prose and full of keen insights into human nature, How It All Began is an engaging, contemporary tale that is sure to strike a chord with her legion of loyal fans as well as new readers. A writer of rare wisdom, elegance, and humor, Lively is a consummate storyteller whose gifts are on full display in this masterful work.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

*Starred Review* The ruling vision of master British novelist Lively’s latest delectably tart and agile novel is the Butterfly Effect, which stipulates that “a very small perturbation” can radically alter the course of events. The catalyst here is a London mugging that leaves Charlotte, a passionate reader and former English teacher become adult literacy tutor, with a broken hip. She moves in with her married daughter, Rose, to recuperate. Rose works for Henry, a lord and once-prominent historian, whose ego is as robust as ever but whose mind is faltering as he attempts to launch a BBC documentary to hilarious effect. With Rose out helping her mother, Henry prevails upon his daughter, Marion, an interior designer, to accompany him out of town, where she meets a too-good-to-be-true client. When she texts her lover, who deals in architectural salvage (tangible history), to postpone a rendezvous, his wife intercepts the message. Charlotte begins tutoring Anton, a smart and soulful East European, who affirms her ardor for language and story and awakens Rose out of her smothering stoicism. Throughout this brilliantly choreographed and surreptitiously poignant chain-reaction comedy of chance and change, Lively (Family Album, 2009) shrewdly elucidates the nature of history, the tunnel-visioning of pain and age, and the abiding illumination of reading, which so profoundly nourishes the mind and spirit. --Donna Seaman

Review

 
“An elegant, witty work of fiction, deceptively simple, emotionally and intellectually penetrating, the kind of novel that brings a plot to satisfying closure but whose questions linger long afterward in the reader’s mind.”

(The New York Times Book Review )

 
“The plot of Penelope Lively’s vital new novel is one big snowball. . . . Writing with her usual poise and cutting cinematically from one character’s story to another’s, Ms. Lively elegantly orchestrates these events while using them as a setup for another series of developments.”

(Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times )

 
“Moving skillfully between streams-of-consciousness and a wry omniscient voice, Lively investigates her characters’ motives and afterthoughts with precision and tenderness.”

(The New Yorker )

 
“With grace, wit and wisdom, Man Booker Prize winner Lively has crafted a highly readable tale about fates intersecting amid the chaos of modern life.”

(People )

 
“Lives intersect in unexpected and comical ways in this breezy, engrossing novel.”

(Entertainment Weekly )

 
“With How It All Began, Lively has provided a golden passport that will sweep you through the border control of other people’s lives.”

(The Washington Post )

 
“Marvelous . . . a spellbinding surprise . . . Every small twist in the road in this superbly well-plotted novel sheds ever-widening concentric rings of consequences.”

(The Chicago Tribune )

 
“Another virtuoso performance . . . Lively continues to surprise and illuminate, writing to ever more dazzling effect.”

(The Boston Globe )

 
“Lively is a consummate storyteller. . . . The characters in this novel are, each and all, well drawn and fully conceived. . . . Everyone in this elegantly told tale is connected by chance and the power of story.”

(The Seattle Times )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult (January 5, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9780670023448
• ISBN-13: 978-0670023448
• ASIN: 0670023442
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (107 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #245,474 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars From One Who Understands February 6, 2012

By Constant Weeder

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

It happens that I am about to turn 78, the same age as Charlotte, one of the protagonists in this splendid novel; the author is close to our ages. She writes with great understanding of such age issues as independence, mobility and memory, but more important, she has written a narrative that's alive on every page, touching the problems of every adult character. No violence, no hidden agendas, no one out to "get" another character, but rather this is a novel of inner thoughts and feelings that holds the reader in its spell. I found the writing compelling and beautiful. Six stars, please.

41 of 45 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars No Man Is An Island January 6, 2012

By prisrob TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Penelope Lively has given us a novel that illustrates how one misdeed can affect many people. She does so, of course, in her own indomitable style.

The author tells us that the plot is inspired by The Chaos Theory:

'Chaos theory studies the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, an effect which is popularly referred to as the butterfly effect. Small differences in initial conditions (such as those due to rounding errors in numerical computation) yield widely diverging outcomes for chaotic systems, rendering long-term prediction impossible in general.' Wikipedia

Charlotte, a woman of indeterminate age, but probably in her seventies, is mugged. She is thrown to the ground, breaking her hip, and her money is taken. That one incident has an affect on at least seven more people. While recuperating, Charlotte goes to live with her daughter, Rose, and Rose's husband, Gerry. Charlotte finds it difficult to be dependent on others, Rose works as a personal secretary to an elderly Lord, an independent scholar, Lord Henry Peters. He suffers from a fading memory, but his ego has him believing that his words command everyone's attention. Henry's niece, Marion, a bit self centered, is an interior designer. Her work has slowed to almost no work. She has also taken up with a married man, Jeremy. Jeremy is a purveyor of other people's junk, and a man who wants it all. His wife, Stella, is a nervous wreck, and she takes a multitude of medications. They have two daughters, and Stella has a sister, Gill, who would drive anyone to drink. Stella reads a text message one day that changes the course of her life. Back to Charlotte, she is a teacher to immigrants who have difficulty reading English. While she is housebound, she invites one of her students, Anton, who is in his forties, and an accountant, to Rose's home for his tutoring. While he is receiving Charlotte's assistance, he meets Rose and they strike up a friendship. All of these people and several they meet by happenstance have become affected by Charlotte's mugging. We learn a little about them and how their actions affect others. Many questions linger on as time passes, and even though I could guess how their lives might change, the journey was delicious.

This is one of Penelope Lively's best novels, and I have enjoyed all twenty-two of them. She has something to teach us all about our behaviors, and how we lead our lives. We have been at the beginning many times with Penelope Lively. But, this time, she tells us "These stories do not end, but spin away from one another, each on its own course." Does everyone live happily after ever? No, does anyone? Each individual leads the life they were meant to live, she believes. Sometimes we are happy, and sometimes we are not. Life goes on, after all.

Highly Recommended. prisrob 01-06-12

Moon Tiger

Family Album: A Novel

40 of 47 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars PERFECT January 10, 2012

By Pamela Malone

Format:Kindle Edition

A perfect novel, rare as hen's teeth these days. Characters one cares about, true understanding of both contemporary and universal time. Life is arbitrary, but life requires action. As a Penelope Lively fan, I think this is her best. Think of that, unlike her characters, age has not stunted her growth. Instead, she has really hit her stride! I find this inspiring, both as a reader and as a person, who is a character in my own life.