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The Clothes on Their Backs
 
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The Clothes on Their Backs (Paperback)

by Linda Grant (Author)
3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
RRP: £11.99
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  • This item: The Clothes on Their Backs by Linda Grant

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Product details

  • Paperback: 293 pages
  • Publisher: Virago Press Ltd (7 Feb 2008)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1844085414
  • ISBN-13: 978-1844085415
  • Product Dimensions: 21.4 x 13.4 x 0.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 88,122 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Review
Praise for STILL HERE: ** 'It's a testament to Grant's skill that she can create a novel at once so serious and so readable' INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY ** 'A passionate, meaty book ... Rewarding' MAIL ON SUNDAY ** 'Tough, lusty and resolutely unreconstructed, Alix is an unconventional, strikingly memorable creation' HARPERS & QUEEN

Independent
'Her novel is at once a beautifully detailed character study, a poignant family history and a richly evocative portrait of the late 1970s'

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The Clothes on Their Backs
79% buy the item featured on this page:
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Customer Reviews

14 Reviews
5 star:
 (3)
4 star:
 (3)
3 star:
 (6)
2 star:
 (2)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.5 out of 5 stars (14 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
22 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars 'Each generation has to'etc, 14 April 2008
A timely reminder of how a society is re-invented and inhabited (rather like clothes) by its immigrants. Also a revealing study of the alienation the children of those immigrants can evolve into should their parents choose to stop time as a way of integrating. Vivien, the protagonist, is the victim and a co-conspirator in the revealing of a family secret. The process by which this revelation is finally made is fascinating: Linda Grant has constructed a narrative as compelling and disturbing as that of her memoir 'Remind me who I am, again'.

Apart from feeling that the book was too short: I would have liked to know more about Vivien's second marriage; Vivien's relationship with her uncle's lover in the present day could have been made more of; I was left with that lovely feeling of having read yet another excellent book by a living novelist,and that there would be even more to look forward to. My advice is to stay in and stretch it over a weekend. Much food for thought.


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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Great characters but the book lacks impact, 16 Dec 2008
By Howard Green (Yorkshire) - See all my reviews
This is a novel about identity. It is the story of Vivien Kovaks, the daughter of Hungarian-Jewish immigrants, as she struggles to find her place in British society in the late Seventies as well as understand her past, a past denied to her by her insular parents. By re-establishing contact with her Uncle Sandor, shunned by her Father for his work as a pimp and slum-landlord, Vivien establishes herself as the scribe for his oral autobiography and sets to work typing up the story of his life. In doing so she learns of her parents' past and therfore more about own. The book is her memories of these events from her middle age in a London shocked by the bombings of July 2006. The theme of clothing as a means of establishing or changing identity is not strong enough to provide the title and seems therefore an unusual theme to draw the title from.

Nor does the structure provide any real desire to read to the end. It is difficult to establish which if any of the vaguely interesting events were intended to fix the reader. Vivien, we know from the beginning is middle aged and sensible by the end, and yet she is the only character in which the reader is able to fully invest. The series of events which conclude the novel, therefore, are merely interesting and provide limited climax.

It can only be the detail with which each character is presented which won Grant her Booker nomination. Vivien the lost maybe-punk in vintage clothing with a useless English degree, her parents the timid Jewish immigrants self imprisoned in their flat on the Marylebone Road, Vivien's `play-thing' Claude, a skinny confused young man existing on the edge of sanity and of course Uncle Sandor a labour camp survivor turned pimp,businessman and cake enthisuast all appeal to the curious reader. All are written into life and interact realistically but there is little more to report.

Vivien herself tells Uncle Sandor, as she advises him on his method of dictating his own story; `if a book is to be publishable, it has to be more than chronology, it has to shed light on the human condition.' Grant achieves this in her portrait of the human need for identity and to a lesser extent the need for family, but I feel that an author with her ability to observe detail and write characters should have aimed for more. There are too many events in the book, rushed by in a page which are of more interest to those which provide the major scenes in the narrative. In short neither Vivien's nor her Uncle Sandor's stories are interesting or absorbing enough to provide Grant with the impact which her themes require.
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9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Colouful and engaging, 16 Sep 2008
By NB (Middlesbrough, UK) - See all my reviews
As colourful as the cover photo, this is a lush book - with intricately written characters, beautiful imagery, atmospheric descriptions of the colours, smells and tastes of 70s London and a fantastic story which made me get a library fine in order to finish it, as someone else wanted it.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Other people seem to like it.
This book has been extensively reviewed already, so I shall keep this brief(ish).

The good bits:
1) The book is well written. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Mr. Geoffrey W. Smith

4.0 out of 5 stars The Clothes on their Backs
Linda Grant's fascination with changing clothes as a metaphor for peeling off layers of character permeates this excellent novel full of characters you confusingly both love and... Read more
Published 2 months ago by E. A. Hagerty

3.0 out of 5 stars Well-drawn characters in search of a story
The book starts well as a snapshot of the lives of Jewish émigrés but then it flags and meanders not knowing where it really wants to go. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Parvati P.

5.0 out of 5 stars amazing
Linda Grant was an author totally new to me. Her writing has bowled me over. The subject matter is not new but the detail in the writing, the apparently easy style, are amazing... Read more
Published 3 months ago by V. Bridge

3.0 out of 5 stars Not Booker Man Quality
I normally enjoy Linda Grant's journalism and blog, The Thoughtful Dresser, and found her book, Remind Me Who I Am Again, very moving and honest. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Avid Reader

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully Written
This is a gorgeous book. Lyrically written, atmospheric and full of appeal.

Vivienne revisits her family home after the death of her father. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Mrs. K. A. Wheatley

4.0 out of 5 stars Well written, but without the lingering qualities of "Modern Times"
The Clothes on their Backs is the story of the daughter of Hungarian refugees, growing up in 1970s London. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Jaybird

3.0 out of 5 stars Lacklustre, although the writing is good
A rather insipid tale, though Grant is a good enough writer to hold the attention, it's hard to really say what 'The Clothes on Their Backs' is really about. Read more
Published 9 months ago by BookWorm

2.0 out of 5 stars Got my back up
Set mainly in the 1970s, "The Clothes on Their Backs" by Linda Grant is narrated by Vivien Kovacs, a second generation Hungarian immigrant to London. Read more
Published 9 months ago by A reader

3.0 out of 5 stars Problems with the narrator
It's not that this is a bad book, but it disappoints after the marvellous When I Lived In Modern Times. Read more
Published 12 months ago by S. B. Kelly

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