The Witch of Exmoor - Hardcover

Drabble, Margaret

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 077102875X ISBN 13: 9780771028755

Publisher: McClelland & Stewart Ltd, 1996

Synopsis

A richly textured, astutely observed, scathingly funny exploration of an extended British family which reveals every layer and nuance of the complex society that is Britain today.

It is a midsummer’s evening in Hampshire, deep in the country, and the three grown Palmer children – Daniel, Gogo, Rosemary – their partners, and children are coming to the end of an enjoyable meal. From this pleasant vantage point they play a dinner-party game: what kind of society would you be willing to accept if you didn’t know your place in it? But the abstract question of justice, like all their family conversations, is brought back to the pressing problem of their eccentric mother, Frieda, the famous writer, who has abandoned them and her old life and gone off to live alone in Exmoor.

Frieda has always been a powerful and puzzling figure, a monster mother with a mysterious past. What is she plotting against them now? Has some inconvenient form of political correctness led her to favour her enchanting half-Guyanese grandson? What will she do with her money? Is she really writing her memoirs? And why has she disappeared? Has the dark spirit of Exmoor finally driven her mad?

The Witch of Exmoor brilliantly interweaves high comedy and personal tragedy with questions about social justice and progress, as Drabble unravels the story of this end-of-the-century family whose comfortable, rational lives – both public and private – are violently disrupted by a succession of sinister, messy events.

About this title

About the Author:

Margaret Drabble was born in Sheffield, England, in 1939, and studied English at Cambridge University. Her novels include The Radiant Way, A Natural Curiosity, The Gates of Ivory, The Witch of Exmoor, The Peppered Moth, and, most recently, The Seven Sisters. Among her non-fiction works are Arnold Bennett: A Biography, A Writer's Britain, and Angus Wilson: A Biography. She is also the editor of The Oxford Companion to English Literature.

Margaret Drabble has three children and is married to the biographer Michael Holroyd. She lives in London, England.
From the Trade Paperback edition.

About this edition

• Publisher: McClelland & Stewart Ltd
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 077102875X
• ISBN 13: 9780771028755
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 275