Fruit of the Lemon
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Trade in Fruit of the Lemon for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Plus, get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Andrea Levy writes with wonderful immediacy and liveliness in this, her third novel about the experience of being black in Britain. It's the late 70's and Faith Jackson's in a hurry - to loosen the hold of her loving but strict parents, to "go her own sweet way". At her new job as a dresser at Television Centre Faith negotiates the trip-wires of being black in often slyly witty, seemingly throwaway asides. But her parents' announcement that they might go home to Jamaica and a vicious racist National Front attack on a local bookshop, propels Faith into crisis.
Urged by her parents--"Child, everyone should know where they come from"--she goes to Kingston to stay with garrulous Auntie Coral. For Faith, it was her aunt's and cousin's rich and lively sequence of conversational storytelling's that 'wrapped me in a family history and swaddled me tight in its stories' - then released her into a new sense of self.
Fruit of the Lemon is an affectionate and absorbing narrative that makes its points about racism's effacements and brutalities with unforced but striking resonance. It offers us a voice of pleasurable yet gritty substance and significance: millennial Britain needs more like this. --Ruth Petrie --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
'Funny and moving... Levy is an ironic comedian whose subtle, intelligent novel steers well clear of whimsy' (Guardian )
'Reinforces Levy's reputation as an astute observer of modern British life' (Financial Times )
'Always refreshingly undogmatic...[readers] will recognise the truthfulness of the world which Andrea Levy describes' (Sunday Telegraph )
'Unflinchingly unsentimental, her writing is leavened with humour and warmth...entertaining and revelatory'
(TLS )'Reinforces Levy's reputation as an astute observer of modern British life' (Financial Times )
'Always refreshingly undogmatic...[readers] will recognise the truthfulness of the world which Andrea Levy describes' (Sunday Telegraph )
'Levy has a gift for voices...a thoughtful comment on racism and the importance of knowing where you are from'
(The Sunday Times )'Bright and inventive'
(Independent )
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
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
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
30 of 31 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The protagonist in this novel, Faith, is a British girl, born of Caribbean parents who came to England from Jamaica on the Jamaica Producers' banana boat. The emphasis on Faith's life with her friends changes when her parents decide to return to Jamaica to retire. When Faith suffers from a breakdown, it is decided she should stay with her aunt, Coral, in Jamaica for a holiday. The narratives alternate between Faith's life in England and the stories related by her family members, and as the novel progresses, the family tree goes further back as she learns more of her parents' lives and her own history. After feeling out of place at first she learns to adapt saying "they laid a past out in front of me. They wrapped me in a family history and swaddled me tight it its stories". A very enjoyable book, focusing on identity and homeland.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Excellent book Andrea Levy has such a good ear for dialogue. She tells such a moving story with wit and makes you care for all the characters. I couldn't put it down.
I was given this book for a birthday present and have now bought it for lots of people; and I'm now reading all her other books.
The characters are so believable and real.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I think the strength of Andrea Levy is her ability to bring generations and thier interdependance (whether concious or otherwise) to life.
Her ability to show the weaknesses and strengths of our multicultural society with its moments of ugliness juxtaposed with its moments of colour blindness highlights both where our country has come from and where it is headed without rancour or bitterness.
This book is not just a great entertaining novel it is a book that brings to the fore the feelings and thoughts of anyone who is the child of immigrant parents.
Important social comment entertainingly told
Her ability to show the weaknesses and strengths of our multicultural society with its moments of ugliness juxtaposed with its moments of colour blindness highlights both where our country has come from and where it is headed without rancour or bitterness.
This book is not just a great entertaining novel it is a book that brings to the fore the feelings and thoughts of anyone who is the child of immigrant parents.
Important social comment entertainingly told
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Tedious Read
This could have been an excellent novel, but fell far short of that due to the tedious nature of the narrative. Read more
Published 2 months ago by CSF
Avoid
Dull, poorly written book that has no real substance. I gave up after chapter 4. A friend read to the end and said the same.
Published 5 months ago by Skibunny
Disappointing (spoilers included)
The Fruit of the Lemon is about a young woman called Faith whose parents are Jamaican and who are living in the UK. Read more
Published 10 months ago by CC
Fruit of the Lemon
I enjoyed the style of the writing and the way we were told the stories of the family who remained in the West Indies
Published 12 months ago by libris
Enjoyable read
'Fruit of the lemon' is another one of Levy's great books. It's an interesting take on how a young, black British girl finds herself through her family.
Published 17 months ago by leona Murphy
A book of 2 halves
Another excellent novel from Andrea Levy. The first half of the book is set in London, the second half in Jamaica as the young broken Faith learns her family history. Read more
Published 18 months ago by Sarah H
Disappointing
After Small Island and Every Light in the House Burnin', I looked forward to reading this one. It was disappointing. Read more
Published on 3 April 2010 by Caro
Fruit of the Lemon
Very disappointing. The first half of the book (set in London) was extremely tedious and the humour very contrived. Read more
Published on 9 Mar 2010 by AJGR de GROOME
Opinions of Bea
Fruit of the Lemon by Andrea Levy was a close cousin of her 'Small Island' best seller. The style and language engaged the reader very well and some of the description of the... Read more
Published on 23 Dec 2009 by Mrs. B. M. Jones
Ok, but not as good as small island
This story was interesting but it kind of just fizzled out at the end. I was hoping for more as I really enjoyed 'Small Island'.
Published on 4 Sep 2009 by Sl Hind
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
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.
|
