- Hardcover: 320 pages
- Publisher: MacLehose Press (7 May 2009)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1847248128
- ISBN-13: 978-1847248121
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 15 x 3.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 92,154 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The Secret Intensity of Everyday Life
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Review
'Utterly captures the sense of quiet desperation of ordinary lives, the huge emotional vulnerability of having children and the ways in which life turns on a sixpence.' Kate Mosse.
'Nicholson writes about all his diverse characters with great kindness and he's one of those rare novelists who can write about sex' Marina Lewycka.
'The writing is unobtrusively brilliant - I can't remember enjoying and admiring a new novel more' Elizabeth Jane Howard.
'An absolute winner … amazingly perceptive, very moving, wholly absorbing. What a huge treat is waiting for those who have not read it!' Juliet Nicolson, author of The Perfect Summer.
'a beautiful novel' New Statesman.
'Everyone is hungry to read something broader and more humane than McEwan and Barnes because we want to understand the society we live in ... The Secret Intensity of Everyday Life is what's been keeping me up at nights' Jenni Russell, Sunday Times.
'Modern tales written well can be brilliant and Nicholson's story set in Sussex is one such novel ... It's very well done' Daily Express. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
'Nicholson writes about all his diverse characters with great kindness and he's one of those rare novelists who can write about sex' Marina Lewycka.
'The writing is unobtrusively brilliant - I can't remember enjoying and admiring a new novel more' Elizabeth Jane Howard.
'An absolute winner … amazingly perceptive, very moving, wholly absorbing. What a huge treat is waiting for those who have not read it!' Juliet Nicolson, author of The Perfect Summer.
'a beautiful novel' New Statesman.
'Everyone is hungry to read something broader and more humane than McEwan and Barnes because we want to understand the society we live in ... The Secret Intensity of Everyday Life is what's been keeping me up at nights' Jenni Russell, Sunday Times.
'Modern tales written well can be brilliant and Nicholson's story set in Sussex is one such novel ... It's very well done' Daily Express. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Product Description
Welcome to Edenfield, an English village in Sussex. It is home to rich and poor, young and old, incomers and folk who've lived there for ever. Among the incomers is mother of two Laura, who, twenty years on, is still pining for Nick, her first love at university. He dumped her, broke her heart and went to live in the States. Now he's back. Her husband Henry is a TV writer who commutes daily and resents the lack of acknowledgment his latest TV series is receiving. Journalist Liz, the single mother (who Henry lusts after on the train to London), still sleeps with her ex ten years after they split and hates herself afterwards. Local schoolmaster, Alan, teaches their children and gets endless rejections for the plays he writes in his spare time. Martin, the struggling farmer, can't bear the yummy mummies and their privileged children; and the kindly local vicar hides a dark secret. These characters - and more - are richly imagined by an author of immense talent whose voice is by turns witty, waspish, sharply observant and achingly tender. Nicholson brings together seamlessly the many strands of his story. Readers will empathize with these characters, laugh at them, cry with them and long for a good outcome for each of them.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
35 of 36 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review
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Set in a Sussex village over 10 days in 2000, this story has got far more to it than the blurb suggests. Although initially hard to get into and seemingly a bit disconnected, this cleverly plotted story with a wide range of characters becomes compelling as Nicholson skilfully weaves the various strands together. It's written in an episodic way, with each chapter dealing with a different strand of the story, then moving on to another strand, only to return to the first strand at a later point. In addition to Laura,(revisited by an old flame) and Henry who works in television, we also get to know a vicar who has lost his faith, a journalist still in the thrall of her ex-husband, an aspiring play-wright teacher, and others too, both old and young. An everyday story of country dwellers could so easily deteriorate into soap opera and it is entirely to Nicholson's credit that his novel rises gloriously above this and really conveys the yearning, the striving, the uncertainty, the disatisfaction and also the optimism with which we struggle through life. Nicholson gives the reader an insight into his characters motivation which the other characters can't see, and in doing so, shows us how little we really know about one another.
I thoroughly enjoyed this thought-provoking story and will certainly look out for more by Nicholson in the future. If you enjoy intelligent contemporary fiction, you really should give this a try.
I thoroughly enjoyed this thought-provoking story and will certainly look out for more by Nicholson in the future. If you enjoy intelligent contemporary fiction, you really should give this a try.
21 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
William Nicholson is a skilled writer. With this book he takes a variety of ordinary people and invokes what it is like to be in their skin. The stories are so well delivered and so intense in their feeling that this book is a remarkable reading experience.
Laura has received a letter from her first love, Nick, with whom she spent ten months as a young woman in her second year at university. But he broke their relationship off - he wasn't ready for the next step at that time, leaving Laura desolate. But Laura moved on eventually, though her experience left its scars. Now he wants to come back into her life. But she has changed. She has married Henry, a TV director and writer, and they have a son and daughter, Jack and Carrie.
In many ways, Nick and Laura's story is the least interesting, and sometimes dissolves into romantic cliché, but there are lots of more rewarding characters living in the same village - Liz, who has a young daughter, Alice, and is still in sexual thrall to her ex-husband; Alan Strachan, Alice and Jack's young teacher who writes plays but can't get them staged; the village rector who finds that he no longer believes in God but whose humility and serene patience is perhaps more honest and useful than any religious certainty; The inner lives of these and other people are explored even down to young Jack, who is under the spell of an older, charismatic friend, Toby, and Alice, who is being bullied. The result is a captivating novel that allows you to feel some of these anxieties from the inside. The reader is swept up in the motivations that emerge and even the least sympathetic of them is rendered with compassion and - yes - intensity. This is one of those novels that you can, for a time, live in. I found myself reluctant to reach the last page.
Laura has received a letter from her first love, Nick, with whom she spent ten months as a young woman in her second year at university. But he broke their relationship off - he wasn't ready for the next step at that time, leaving Laura desolate. But Laura moved on eventually, though her experience left its scars. Now he wants to come back into her life. But she has changed. She has married Henry, a TV director and writer, and they have a son and daughter, Jack and Carrie.
In many ways, Nick and Laura's story is the least interesting, and sometimes dissolves into romantic cliché, but there are lots of more rewarding characters living in the same village - Liz, who has a young daughter, Alice, and is still in sexual thrall to her ex-husband; Alan Strachan, Alice and Jack's young teacher who writes plays but can't get them staged; the village rector who finds that he no longer believes in God but whose humility and serene patience is perhaps more honest and useful than any religious certainty; The inner lives of these and other people are explored even down to young Jack, who is under the spell of an older, charismatic friend, Toby, and Alice, who is being bullied. The result is a captivating novel that allows you to feel some of these anxieties from the inside. The reader is swept up in the motivations that emerge and even the least sympathetic of them is rendered with compassion and - yes - intensity. This is one of those novels that you can, for a time, live in. I found myself reluctant to reach the last page.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I bought this book based on other reviews, and was a bit taken aback when I ready the blurb, as it suggested that the book would be a bit light. However, it was extremely well-written and gripping from start to finish. Much better than the cover would suggest.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
'You're right, Mr Strachan. we're all unhappy'
'She recognizes the handwriting on the envelope. She drinks from her mug of tea, looks across the kitchen table at Henry, sees him absorbed in the triage of the morning... Read more
Published 6 days ago by purpleheart
kill me now
a beautifully written book that does not lend itself well to the kindle format. confusing soup of characters, plot that dithered in time and place. Read more
Published 6 days ago by Gina Slater
Brilliantly perceptive
After reading "The Secret Intensity of Life", I was in awe of how one man can convey such depth of understanding about people and their lives. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Goldilocks
The secret intensity of everyday life
This book was chosen by my Book Group for last month. I found it was quite a good read after it stopped jumping around between characters in the first part. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Titch
Lovely read
This book is such fun. At times it reads like "chic lit" but I cared about the characters and there are moments of real wisdom. The author is so perceptive about people.
Published 3 months ago by J. Guest
Home counties fun - highly entertaining
William Nicholson's "The Secret Intensity of Everyday Life" is an ensemble story focussing predominantly on middle class and mainly middle age people living in a Sussex village. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Ripple
Not all it is cracked up to be
I read this with some anticipation and was greatly disappointed. Far from being the subtle and insightful novel the critics had puffed it up to be it was instead an entirely... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Sophocles
Intense
I did not find this book that good, Difficult to read as the writing did not have a great flow.
The synopsis gives you a good overview of what its about. Read more
The synopsis gives you a good overview of what its about. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Fletch-a-sketch
A wonderful snapshot of the power of everyday life
This is the first William Nicholson book I've read and I immediately ordered two more!The events take place over 6 days in a village in 2000,following the varied live of a married... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Lorna Bevan
the secret intensity of everyday life
I also found it bit burdened with too many characters to begin with but after about a third of the way through it was unputdownable. So true and accurate about everyday lives. Read more
Published 12 months ago by skafta
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