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The Facts of Life: A Novel
 
 
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The Facts of Life: A Novel (Hardcover)

by Graham Joyce (Author) "If she's not here, thinks Cassie, if she's not coming ..." (more)
4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 304 pages
  • Publisher: Atria Books (16 Jun 2003)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0743463420
  • ISBN-13: 978-0743463423
  • Product Dimensions: 24.2 x 16.8 x 2.6 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 2,064,776 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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    #39 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > J > Joyce, Graham

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Product Description

Review

Jonathan Lethem author of "Motherless Brooklyn" I won't bother saying Graham Joyce deserves to find a wide audience in America; rather I think the American audience deserves to find him.


Product Description

A remarkable young boy, Frank Arthur Vine, the product of a passionate encounter between his mother Cassie and an American G.I., is brought up by his mother's six very different--and idiosyncratic--sisters and his charismatic grandmother after his mother is determined to be too unstable, in a emotio
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If she's not here, thinks Cassie, if she's not coming. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews

5 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.6 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Deep Joy!, 28 Dec 2002
By Rikki K (London) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Facts of Life (Gollancz S.F.) (Hardcover)
This beautiful writer gets better and better...I cant describe how this book works its magic. Its funny and dark in turns but it was easily the best book I've read in the last ten years. There are so many beautiful characters in this but more importantly you get the preciousness of life, the humour of life, the madness of family life. I have read Graham Joyce before and all very good to but this is on a different plane. Every page was a deep joy for me and I started reading it slowly as I got to the end because I didn't want it to end.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A Masterpiece!, 14 Jan 2003
This review is from: The Facts of Life (Gollancz S.F.) (Hardcover)
A psychic matriarch, seven daughters and one magical boy hold center stage in Graham Joyce's latest novel, The Facts of Life, a work situated comfortably somewhere between the best mainstream fiction and the subtlest works of fantasy. Be it magical realism or literary horror, the key ingredients here, as with all of Joyce's works, are characters you can reach out and touch. And they touch you right back.

Set in during and post-WWII Coventry, England, the novel opens with "wayward ... fey" Cassie Vine and the bundle in her arms, Frank, whom she fails to give away to a prospective foster mother. Returning home to her mother, Martha and her six sisters, Cassie triggers a discussion that will set the tone and struggle for the rest of the novel. As Cassie herself "is the last girl on Earth fit to raise a child," Martha and her daughters agree that Frank should be raised by the entire clan.

Passed from Martha and Aunt Beatie Vine's own care to Aunt Una and Uncle Tom's farm, to his twin aunts Evelyn and Ina, it becomes clear that Frank is special and possessed of special abilities. Here at the farm, young Frank discovers the Man-Behind-The-Glass, a mysterious figure trapped in the Earth, constantly demanding that Frank bring him things.

Meanwhile, the secret of Frank's conception remains with Cassie, buried deep in the night that German bombers circled over Coventry dropping incendiary and explosive payloads until most of the city was leveled. Cassie, who is regularly possessed of "blue" periods during which she tends to wander far, must often leave Frank in the care of his more stable relatives, transferring him from household-to-household, including an experimental commune and a house with an active mortuary parlor in the back. From each he takes away a lesson about life.

Through it all, Martha watches, patiently directing Franks care from place-to-place, occasionally visited at the front door by precognitive apparitions that help her pave the way.

Though a quiet work, The Facts of Life is no less gripping than Joyce's more conventional work in novels like Requiem and The Tooth Fairy. It's gently graceful characters and precise language makes this alternately horrific and humorous work a treasure whose pages will have slipped through the reader's fingers far too quickly.

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5.0 out of 5 stars To be savoured, 10 Feb 2007
By J. Williamson (Blackburn, Lancs United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: The Facts of Life (Paperback)
Just like a luscious belgian chocolate or a fine glass of wine, this book should be savoured and read slowly. Each chapter is so beautifully written and yet it appears to have been so effortlessly created. This is a story of a family you will remember for a long time. Each character is meticulously drawn with both humour and honesty. This was the first novel by Graham Joyce I had read but I will be searching for another one very soon.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Cassie is fey ...
I've read a few books now by Joyce, and this has to be my favourite so far. Set during, and just after, the London Blitz of WWI, this book tells the story of Cassie, her family,... Read more
Published on 4 Jul 2005 by thefence

4.0 out of 5 stars Cassie is fey ...
I've read a few books now by Joyce, and this has to be my favourite so far. Set during, and just after, the London Blitz of WWI, this book tells the story of Cassie, her family,... Read more
Published on 4 Jul 2005 by thefence

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