|
Perfect Lives
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Perfect Lives for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. 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
Review
'An unexpected combination of romp and classical: thought-provoking, sassy and comforting' --Ali Smith
'With her effortless prose and unflinching eye, Samson dips beneath the surface of apparently contented, even blessed lives and the result is compelling, disturbing and moving' Maggie O'Farrell --Maggie o'Farrell
'These intertwined, silken stories deftly expose the heart-sickness behind so many of the burnished surfaces of contemporary life' --John Banville
'This is a masterly book and it's impossible not to start all over again the minute you finish reading it. More than simply a series of exquisitely crafted miniatures, it encompasses many of the larger delights of a full-length novel. Polly Samson loves these people, describing them with incisive wit and generous compassion.' --Sue Gaisford, Financial Times
"Writing is as effortlessly elegant as Kazuo Ishiguro or Hilary Mantel at their best." --Foyles - Fiction Book of the Month (November)
'Samson's interlinked stories reveal turbulent emotional truths ... Samson's tone is pitch perfect, as bracing and invigorating as her seaside setting.' --Marie Claire
'A life enhancing treat of a book...stories strung together cleverly into a novel' --Esther Freud, Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year
'Perfect Lives confirms Samson's reputation as a significant chronicler of contemporary life' --Stephanie Merritt, Observer
'Funny, beautifully observed and often poignant. The best thing Samson has produced yet' --Cressida Connolly, Spectator, Books of the Year
'Original and compelling' --Sunday Times
'Lyrical, lush and sensuous'
--Sheena Mackay, Guardian
'With her effortless prose and unflinching eye, Samson dips beneath the surface of apparently contented, even blessed lives and the result is compelling, disturbing and moving' Maggie O'Farrell --Maggie o'Farrell
'These intertwined, silken stories deftly expose the heart-sickness behind so many of the burnished surfaces of contemporary life' --John Banville
'This is a masterly book and it's impossible not to start all over again the minute you finish reading it. More than simply a series of exquisitely crafted miniatures, it encompasses many of the larger delights of a full-length novel. Polly Samson loves these people, describing them with incisive wit and generous compassion.' --Sue Gaisford, Financial Times
"Writing is as effortlessly elegant as Kazuo Ishiguro or Hilary Mantel at their best." --Foyles - Fiction Book of the Month (November)
'Samson's interlinked stories reveal turbulent emotional truths ... Samson's tone is pitch perfect, as bracing and invigorating as her seaside setting.' --Marie Claire
'A life enhancing treat of a book...stories strung together cleverly into a novel' --Esther Freud, Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year
'Perfect Lives confirms Samson's reputation as a significant chronicler of contemporary life' --Stephanie Merritt, Observer
'Funny, beautifully observed and often poignant. The best thing Samson has produced yet' --Cressida Connolly, Spectator, Books of the Year
'Original and compelling' --Sunday Times
'Lyrical, lush and sensuous'
--Sheena Mackay, Guardian
Product Description
In an English seaside town, lovers and children, young men and middle-aged women weave in and out of each other's lives and stories.
A mother is tormented by her daughter's tattoo; another only pretends to love her baby. A wife stalks her husband and his new lover; a broken egg through a letterbox tells a story that will not go away; the cat thinks he knows best. Threaded throughout are longings for love and poignant disappointments, surprising pleasures and temptations. Some will fall but some, like the small boy at the circus who sees his babysitter fly past on a trapeze wearing little more than a blue bra and spangles, will retain their feeling of awe.
Perfect Lives, follows Polly Samson s rapturously received first collection, Lying in Bed. They are rueful, knowing, witty, poignant, bashful, bold. Her genius is in the nuance.
A mother is tormented by her daughter's tattoo; another only pretends to love her baby. A wife stalks her husband and his new lover; a broken egg through a letterbox tells a story that will not go away; the cat thinks he knows best. Threaded throughout are longings for love and poignant disappointments, surprising pleasures and temptations. Some will fall but some, like the small boy at the circus who sees his babysitter fly past on a trapeze wearing little more than a blue bra and spangles, will retain their feeling of awe.
Perfect Lives, follows Polly Samson s rapturously received first collection, Lying in Bed. They are rueful, knowing, witty, poignant, bashful, bold. Her genius is in the nuance.
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
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I found this collection too slight to be of consequence. The characters were very forgettable and samey and it was hard to sympathise with their problems. The theme of the darkness behind happniess has been done better and in more depth by others such as McEwan.
16 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
This collection of short stories burrows beneath the surface of other people's lives. The first story 'The Egg' introduces us to Celia Idlewild, who seems to have everything; perfect life; perfect house; perfect children as well as the most exquisite grand piano.(Pianos feature a lot in this collection.) Only, the more we read, the more we see that happiness and perfection is only a thin veneer coating the reality of her life. (Even the splendid piano has a dark secret.) Subsequent stories introduce us to people whose lives touch those of the Idlewilds.There's Richard, now a piano tuner, whose crippling stage-fright destroyed a promising career as a concert pianist and the woman he meets whose love of her wreck of an old piano, alters his perspective on perfection. We also meet people he has known in the past and see life through their eyes. In other stories the author peels away the layers of a humdrum marriage but also reveals its close intimacy.She is particularly adept as showing us how children think and feel of the way adults behave. In every story, the more that is stripped away, the more detail is added to these people's live, so much so that I immediately had to go back to the beginning and reread each story.
Polly Samson's prose has a deceptively light touch, which to me is the mark of a great writer. She tells you all you need to know without labouring the point. If you like your fiction spare; fiction that requires readers to make the connections for themselves, then 'Perfect Lives' is for you. Sometimes bleak, but ultimately uplifting, these stories remind us of the eternal resilience of the human spirit.
Polly Samson's prose has a deceptively light touch, which to me is the mark of a great writer. She tells you all you need to know without labouring the point. If you like your fiction spare; fiction that requires readers to make the connections for themselves, then 'Perfect Lives' is for you. Sometimes bleak, but ultimately uplifting, these stories remind us of the eternal resilience of the human spirit.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
In this collection of short stories, Samson focuses on the emotional lives and relationships of a loosely-connected group of middle-class people, all having some association with an English seaside town.
This is very cleverly done, with someone who was previously a main character appearing later as a walk-on part in someone else's life, and vice-versa. For example, we see the same woman through the eyes of a shy piano tuner in one story and her over-critical mother in another. Neither portrayal gives the whole picture, but taken together a character emerges. This mirrors real life, with all the various roles people assume and the various biased positions from which they are viewed. The recurring cast of characters has a cumulative effective; for example, in the first line of 'Ivan Knows', a story appearing near the end of the collection, the reader's enjoyment is increased, and curiosity piqued, by their knowing who both Ivan and Lucy are:
"Ivan almost choked on his candyfloss when he saw Laura Idlewild flying past in her blue bra."
The solipsism of the teenager wittily and accurately described in 'At Arka Pana' is offset by the reader's knowledge of her mother's assessment of her in 'Leaving Hamburg', and it is a joy to meet the afore-mentioned Ivan in 'Ivan Knows', having only seen him fleetingly as a small child in other stories. Themes as well as characters recur, being picked up and examined from all sides, and I think this is a book that will repay re-reading.
The stories include first person and third person narration, with one of the best, 'The Birthday Present', being addressed to a 'you' with whom the narrator is obsessed. The identity of the addressee is witheld, although its nature gradually dawns on the reader. Although this might seem tricksy (and another story, 'At Arka Pana', plays a similar game) by the time the reader is made aware of the object of infatuation their passion equals that of the narrator.
I didn't warm to this book immediately, and in retrospect I think the first story is one of the weakest, with the style appearing too mannered and the subject matter and its relation to the title 'Perfect Lives' rather cliched. But reading on, Samson's wit, unflinching eye, and gift for characterization meant I was soon absorbed; and I closed the book feeling uplifted, having had a glimpse into the lives of a group of people, which although not perfect, have moments approaching perfection.
This is very cleverly done, with someone who was previously a main character appearing later as a walk-on part in someone else's life, and vice-versa. For example, we see the same woman through the eyes of a shy piano tuner in one story and her over-critical mother in another. Neither portrayal gives the whole picture, but taken together a character emerges. This mirrors real life, with all the various roles people assume and the various biased positions from which they are viewed. The recurring cast of characters has a cumulative effective; for example, in the first line of 'Ivan Knows', a story appearing near the end of the collection, the reader's enjoyment is increased, and curiosity piqued, by their knowing who both Ivan and Lucy are:
"Ivan almost choked on his candyfloss when he saw Laura Idlewild flying past in her blue bra."
The solipsism of the teenager wittily and accurately described in 'At Arka Pana' is offset by the reader's knowledge of her mother's assessment of her in 'Leaving Hamburg', and it is a joy to meet the afore-mentioned Ivan in 'Ivan Knows', having only seen him fleetingly as a small child in other stories. Themes as well as characters recur, being picked up and examined from all sides, and I think this is a book that will repay re-reading.
The stories include first person and third person narration, with one of the best, 'The Birthday Present', being addressed to a 'you' with whom the narrator is obsessed. The identity of the addressee is witheld, although its nature gradually dawns on the reader. Although this might seem tricksy (and another story, 'At Arka Pana', plays a similar game) by the time the reader is made aware of the object of infatuation their passion equals that of the narrator.
I didn't warm to this book immediately, and in retrospect I think the first story is one of the weakest, with the style appearing too mannered and the subject matter and its relation to the title 'Perfect Lives' rather cliched. But reading on, Samson's wit, unflinching eye, and gift for characterization meant I was soon absorbed; and I closed the book feeling uplifted, having had a glimpse into the lives of a group of people, which although not perfect, have moments approaching perfection.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Good short stories
Well written short stories, with interesting characters and locations. I love the little links between each one, and look forward to more from the same author.
Published 5 months ago by H. Beaumont
A very nice surprise
I actually bought this book on a whim because it fell under the "Customers who bought this book also bought......." without first reading the reviews. Read more
Published 9 months ago by R. C. S
A book about middle class women, for middle class women
A set of 11 intertwining short stories about (upper) middle class people in England - they seem perfect on the outside but underneath they are not. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Dizzydays
A real find
A wonderfully enjoyable book of short stories which are self contained but inter connected. The stories are about modern people, families, their interactions and every day lives. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Four Violets
OK, but...
This is a set of short stories, loosely linked by some of the characters. The individual voices did not come across particularly well, but some of the mind pictures worked for... Read more
Published 15 months ago by R. F. Stevens
A Pleasing Read - even though nothing really happens.
I took this book on a cruise to to laze away the hours. It worked. The book of short stories of middle class lives that sometimes inter-connect is an o.k. affair. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Mr Paul Savory
What lies beneath perfect lives...
This collection of short but sometimes connected stories by Polly Samson reveals the dramas and tragedies that lie beneath apparently perfect middle class lives. Read more
Published 16 months ago by joc66
Not perfect...
Polly Samson's new collection of short stories are all set in the same English seaside town and feature the same recurring characters. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Charliecat
Looking Behind the Curtain
Polly Sansom is so good at looking at and recording the thoughts and dreams of people as they try to make sense of their lives. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Richard M. Seel
A curate's egg
This is the second short story collection I've read lately that was themed in some way. In Colm Toibin's "The Empty Family" the stories were linked by theme and to some extent by... Read more
Published 16 months ago by Sheenagh Pugh
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.
|
