A generous hearted novel of modern family life. Anna and Kit are both schoolteachers, longing for a baby of their own but there is no sign so far. The marriage is perhaps more companionable than high-voltage emotionally. But a disastrous school trip to Venice triggers a sequence of events that are to have serious consequences on all aspects of their lives. Kit Milcourt - impatient, quirky, idealistic and brilliant - has been a climber, diver in exotic waters and affluent young city banker. Now, because of his beloved Anna, he is a teacher. Glumly mediocre Sandmarsh High School, reeling under assaults from Inspectors and its own unpromising pupils, is hard put to contain his maverick ideas. Year Seven, on the other hand, love them. Only the soothing presence of Anna keeps the peace. But Anna can't guard her erratic husband on the school trip: instead a far darker, more malevolent staffroom presence crosses Europe and discovers what Kit has secretly planned for the children amid the dim alleys of winter Venice. But children are unpredictable too, and things move rapidly beyond both teachers' control. Between farce and tragedy the resulting events swiftly change Kit's and Anna's live in unthinkable ways, strain a great love to the limit and open a dark chasm into the past.
--This text refers to the
Kindle Edition
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
'done with a finesse which makes the words live on in your memory long after the novel has been put away' -- Gina Sykes, The Examiner 'a brilliant dissection of troubled lives' -- Prima, London 'an idiosyncratic blend of her journalistic voice ... With the skills of a writer who understands the proper balance in a novel between issue and narrative. ... This is her best novel ... [and] will find an answering echo in many readers' -- Elizabeth Buchan, The Times 'Purves' fourth novel is a skilled and serious attempt to deal with society's sensitivity (or oversensitivity) towards the treatment of children' -- Nottingham Evening Post 'Purves's evocative descriptions of Venice intensify an already gripping narrative' -- Mail on Sunday 'all the compassion characteristic of her writing in her previous novels and columns. ... This is a humane and perceptive novel' -- Woman & Home 'As ever, Libby Purves draws you into the laughter and tears in the life of her characters, in this case teachers Kit and Anna. ... Like all her books, this is a cracking story' -- Woman's Weekly 'A lovely read, and much enjoyed by my reader, who thinks that this is her best novel yet.' -- Sarah Broadhurst
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
About the Author
Libby Purves is a writer and also a broadcaster who has presented the talk programme Midweek on Radio 4 since 1984 and formerly presented Today. She is a main columnist on the Times and in 1999 was named the Granada "What the Papers Say" Columnist of the Year, and awarded a O.B.E for services to journalism.
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
This is a love story...with a sting in the tail,
This review is from: More Lives Than One (Paperback)
It's about a life together that could have been perfect, but for a secret.
The book's `blurb' warns of disaster, but there's no hint while you're reading it when or who it will strike. The story accelerates and events suddenly spin out of control. There are lots of interesting twists in the storytelling but the final twist (and sting) comes out of the blue - my only criticism is that it is a bit far fetched, and though you feel sorry for the characters, you're not entirely sure you should. Although the book is unevenly paced it didn't at any point lose my interest.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
MORE TALENTS THAN ONE,
By DAVID BRYSON (Glossop Derbyshire England) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (VINE VOICE) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: More Lives Than One (Paperback)
To get the maximum enjoyment out of this book I suspect one has to be familiar with the author as a radio journalist. She has a style all of her own as the leader of an intellectual discussion programme at 9a.m. on BBC Radio 4 on Wednesdays - bright, alert, witty and always friendly - and on top of the style she has a particularly attractive voice. Being used to her helps in two ways when reading the book - it sharpens one's appreciation of some of the best and most characteristic sequences, and it helps us get through the second-best bits.
I would say this novel is a bit of a curate's egg. The start really did strike me as rather dull and conventional, written in a familiar airport-bookstall idiom, albeit an upmarket version of that. Before making her career in broadcasting Libby Purves had been a particularly brilliant graduate of the school of English at Oxford. So far as I could tell, this particular school required a reading-capacity analogous in its power of extraction and absorption to that of the Japanese deep-sea fishing fleet. How anyone who had undergone this process retained the smallest capacity to appreciate literature I never understood, and I find myself still intrigued and uncertain about that when I read this creative effort by one of the most triumphant survivors of the ordeal. She does a good deal of quoting, but I'm not certain what the quotations really mean to her other than a kind of display of jewellery. For one thing, the very title of the book puzzles me. The actual words are taken from Wilde's Ballad of Reading Gaol, but read from that point of view I'm not sure of their relevance. Where they do seem to fit the narrative particularly well is in the way Purves keeps switching the focus of the thoughts and action from one character to another, a feature that I would call particularly skilful and successful, except that I'm not too sure to what extent the author consciously intended it or meant it to reflect the book's title. Another matter is the plot line or lines. Up to the point of the return of the school party from Venice, everything seems fine to me. The characterisation has been good, the situations convincing, the insights varied and the quality of the writing much better than at the start, with some very witty touches that are all the more effective if one's mind's ear hears the author's own voice in them. The press notices that I've seen also pay particular tribute to the evocativeness of the writing about Venice itself, and I'm only too happy to endorse this estimate. What convinces me rather less is the final denouement. This has been `prepared for' in a rather perfunctory way earlier in the story, but it still has rather the feel of a tail pinned on to the donkey as in the children's game. I don't complain that the author doesn't take sides in the `nature vs nurture' argument, I do complain that she raises a new and slightly contrived issue like this towards the end of the story, fails to integrate it properly with anything that went before and takes no particular stance of her own concerning it. It all left me feeling that the story didn't really conclude in any convincing or satisfactory way but rather petered out. If I ever read the book again, which I suppose is doubtful, I may revise this opinion. In the meantime, most of the book seemed to me very worthwhile and involving. The school staffroom politics in particular were acutely touched on, and above all the issues of the vulnerability of schoolteachers to irresponsible accusations that receive even more irresponsible support, and of the way that rumour can spread and be spread so that it becomes the shapeless and hideous monster that Virgil called it, reveal a major talent. I'd call this a pretty good novel all things considered, and my guess is that it will please most of its readers.
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