In the Dark
and over 900,000 other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Amazon.co.uk Trade-In Store for more details. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
Product Description
Financial Times
'deliciously vivid portrait'
The Sunday Times
'Refreshingly low-schmaltz...successfully modernises the past. By
focusing on life's murkier undercurrents... the characters come to seem
appealingly familiar'
focusing on life's murkier undercurrents... the characters come to seem
appealingly familiar'
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
32 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
In the Dark,
By
This review is from: In the Dark (Paperback)
Deborah Moggach is one of those well-selling female authors who's sometimes looked down on for not being literary. Like Joanna Trollope or Anita Shreve, say her detractors, she's a popular - populist - author churning out domestic sagas on a conveyor belt.
This simplification does these successful authors a disservice. They may deal with the everyday and their prose may indeed be accessible and non literary, but that doesn't mean their work should be undervalued. Any author that can bring reading to the masses deserves praise, and, as with Richard and Judy's recommended titles, sometimes first impressions are just plain biased. In The Dark is a frisky love story set during WW1. Attractive Eithne Clay has a variety of lodgers in her large dilapidated London home. Her loyal maid Winnie and adolescent son Ralph help her run the place. Eithne, however, has always felt she's destined for higher things, and when excitement enters her life in the form of the lusty hulking form of Neville Turk the local butcher, she is swept up into a passionate affair. Meanwhile, the lives of those around them continues, with some disgruntlement. If it weren't for the setting, Moggach's Orange 2008 longlisted novel would just be a bodice-ripper with added colour from peripheral characters. But Moggach has done her research and the smog-ridden, sooty London of 1916 - 18 really comes alive. Because the details are so convincing, the characters also rise from the page. Very occasionally, a word that is so archaic crops up that one wonders whether it has been planted just for the sake of its age, for instance when Moggach describes Ralph's 'pollutions' at night (use your imagination). And, because the descriptions conjure such a vivid picture of the era and because the dialogue is so appropriate for that time, the odd anachronism jars, for instance, when one character mulls over whether someone has chronic bronchitis, a medical term that almost certainly wouldn't have been coined then. There's also a scene where it's mentioned that the maid normally washes seven pairs of Mrs Clay's underpants a week: one can't help wondering if in those days a daily bath and change of clothes was de rigeur. While the novel couldn't be said to be prosaically ambitious, or, therefore, linguistically unusually outstanding, the simple, accessible language suits the story which chugs along briskly like the steam-belching trains described. It's the kind of atmospheric, brooding story that would adapt well to TV, and there's all the requisite angst, sex and moodiness. All in all, In the Dark is a light but absorbing read with plenty of frissons of excitement. Not a literary masterpiece, but then, it doesn't pretend to be. ***00 1/2
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
wonderful piece of writing,
By Mr. R. N. Lock "Ricky Lock" (bexley, kent United Kingdom) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: In the Dark (Hardcover)
In this book Deborah Moggach has written a wonderful character driven story, its wonderful descriptive writing and keeps you intrigued throughout. It's touching, funny and saucy in parts and has some great twists to the story. This is the first book I have read of Deborah Moggach and I will definitely be reading more in the future. It's a master class in writing.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A rich stew of character-driven experience,
By
This review is from: In the Dark (Hardcover)
Set in a narrow terraced house in a London street, just after the start of World War I, In The Dark, tells the story of Ralph, aged 14, living with Mum and Dad, in their lodging house consisting of tenants who are mostly misfits and war casualties. Dad enlisted early and sends cheerful letters home telling of matey japes and football games in the trenches. Then Mum, Eithne, receives the telegram telling her that her husband is dead and circumstances become grim, until she attracts the attention of the flashy local butcher, Neville Turk, after which meals at the lodging house vastly improve and other changes are afoot for the inhabitants.
Moggach's rich stew of character-driven experiences captivates from the first page and there is an authentic feeling to every turn of the plot. The lodging house, next to a railway viaduct and prone to soot streaks and general grime, is almost another character as, Eithne's maid-of-all-work, Winnie, finds herself increasingly responsible for the well-being and upkeep of the family's proprieties. Young Ralph hero-worships the world-weary Boycie, soon to march off to war, and Eithne falls under the spell of the brilliantined and ebullient Mr Turk. Before the end of the novel Ralph will uncover a number of secrets kept by the family's lodgers, not least the shocking truth about the blind Communist sympathiser Alwyne Flyte. This warm-hearted, funny and often touching novel is briskly paced and a pleasure to read.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews |
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
