Mary George of Allnorthover

By Lavinia Greenlaw

Book Overview

Lavinia Greenlaw's mesmerising debut novel about growing up in the surreal banality of mid-'70s Essex.

Lavinia Greenlaw puts before us the monochrome, immemorial middle England of the 1970s in all its dowdy glory, and has us see through the mercurial, bewitching Mary George's eyes how a seemingly static landscape is suddenly illuminated by the most vivid bursts of energy, colour and drama. Punk's torch flares into life and singes the fringes of England. Mary George bears witness and burns brighter still: she is more memorable than even the extraordinary events around her, and the reader will find it devastatingly hard to leave her company at the end of this exceptional debut about growing up under the shadow of an unknowable, inescapable small-town mystery.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0007204590
• ISBN13: 9780007204595
• Release Date: January 2006
• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.66 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.0" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

An Interesting Tale

Mary George of Allnorthover is an unique coming-of0age novel with a unique protagonist. Mary Beorge, a young girl growing up in a small British town in the 1970s tries to deal with here parents' separation, boys, the mysteries of her own past and Tom, a local man fresh from institutionalization who believes she can walk on water. Mary is definitely on the brink of something--she can see it and we can see it--and like most teens, she is desperately trying to determine what that is, where she fits in, who her friends should be. The novel is beautifully written, if a little slow, but still very well done.