The Dark Flood Rises

Drabble, Margaret

3.55

2,725 ratings by Goodreads

ISBN 10: 1520065426 ISBN 13: 9781520065427

Publisher: Dreamscape Media Llc, 2017

Francesca Stubbs has a very full life. A highly regarded expert on housing for the elderly who is herself getting on in age, she drives “restlessly round England.” Amid the professional conferences she attends, she fits in visits to old friends, brings home-cooked dinners to her ex-husband, texts her son, who is grieving over the sudden death of his girlfriend, and drops in on her daughter, a quirky young woman who lives in a floodplain in the West Country. This dark and glittering novel moves back and forth between an interconnected group of family and friends in England and a seemingly idyllic expat community in the Canary Islands, where we also observe the flow of immigrants from an increasingly war-torn Middle East.

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Review:

Shrewd and timely - the best novel I've read in ages. Ferociously well written, and hugely entertaining -- SARAH WATERS Erudite, beautifully written, funny, tragic * * Daily Mail * * Darkly witty and exhilarating * * The Times * * With its echoes of Simone de Beauvoir and Samuel Beckett, this quiet meditation an old age seethes with apocalyptic intent . . . Brilliant * * Guardian * * Masterly, poignant and uplifting * * Mail on Sunday * * Drabble has pulled off a quietly revolutionary portrait of an age-group whose lives are just as urgent as anyone's but are rarely considered ***** * * Sunday Telegraph * * Ageing and dying in style . . . Margaret Drabble's sharply drawn characters look back on lives lived and forwards to achieving a good death * * Observer * * Uplifting . . . Profound . . . Unforgettable . . . At its heart is the enormous question, how do we know if we've had a good life? * * Sunday Telegraph * * Now 77 and on her 19th novel, Drabble is skillful at creating brilliantly drawn, three-dimensional characters in this thought-provoking and witty read * * Sunday Post * * Written with tremendous energy . . . Drabble has always been an observant chronicler of human life. Meditations on what makes a good death . . . are enthusiastically explored in a text that roves fluidly between past and present. Inquisitive and erudite * * Literary Review * * A vein of black humour pulses . . . as entertaining as a conversation with a dear friend * * Daily Mail * * Heartbreaking and hilarious * * Sunday Independent * * Witty and intelligent . . . brimming with relevance * * Independent * * A heartfelt rumination on the process of ageing and inevitability of death * * The List * * A significant achievement, admirable and truthful * * New Statesman * * A thought-provoking, witty and surprisingly acerbic read * * The Herald * * Sharp observation and pessimistic pondering . . .There is a gloomy, undeniable truthfulness to this novel * * Daily Express * * Drabble's brilliance . . . builds up a sense of wide horizons that one has never seen in quite the same way before * * The Times * * Her distinctive narrative voice and soaring prose remain electrifying * * Spectator * *

Book Description:

The new novel from literary great Margaret Drabble is by turns dark and joyous, hilarious and heartbreaking, and asks us what makes a good life, and a good death

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