Grasshopper - Hardcover

Vine, Barbara

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0609607898 ISBN 13: 9780609607893

Publisher: Harmony Books, 2000

Synopsis

From the time she was a child, Clodagh Brown has revelled in climbing--first trees, then electrical pylons, and as a young woman, the rooftops of London, where she becomes an eyewitness to people's intimate lives and secrets--but she soon discover that her compulsion could exact a terrible price. 35,000 first printing.

About this title

Review:

Grasshopper is the tale of Clodagh's recovery from the death of her best friend and liberation from the guilt her parents have imposed on her for the pylon-climbing that led to it; it is also the tale of new mistakes, and their disastrous consequences. In the London of the late 80s, Clodagh finds her own level--and it is way above the streets, with a roof-jaunting group of disaffected young people, each with a trauma of their own. For Swedish Liv, it is the nightmare of au-pairing; for Silver, it was abduction as a small boy; for the sinister young thug Jimmy, it was sexual abuse on a massive scale. When they graduate from merely clambering around to trying to do good, and help a couple on the run from the social services with a foster child, that is when the trouble starts... The audiobook adaptation is taut and passionate; Frances Barber's range of voices and characterisations adds immediacy to the strong characterisation and never becomes a mere series of comic impersonations, she retains a sense of this story's urgency even in the chunks of back-story that punctuate the main action. Duration: 5 hours--Roz Kaveney

Review:

'The Rendell/ Vine partnership has for years been producing consistently better work than most Booker winners put together.' (Ian Rankin)

'A typically elegant, and typically elegiac, turn from the woman with two award-winning names. And one superlative voice.' (Star-Telegram)

About this edition

• Publisher: Harmony Books
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0609607898
• ISBN 13: 9780609607893
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 392