Behind the scenes at the museum

Description

The story of Ruby's own life is told in thirteen chapters, all written in the first person, documenting key periods in Ruby's life from 1951 to 1992. In between each chapter are (non-consecutive) flashbacks that tell the story from the point of view of one of the other (mostly female) members of Ruby's family—including her great-grandmother Alice, her grandmother Nell and her mother Bunty.

Description

In her profoundly moving, uniquely comic debut, Kate Atkinson introduces readers to the mind and world of Ruby Lennox, born above a pet shop in York at the halfway point of the twentieth century, and determined to understand both the family that precedes her and the life that awaits her. Taking her own conception as her starting point, the irrepressible Ruby narrates a story of four generations of women, from her great-grandmother's affair with a French photographer, to her mother's unfulfilled dreams of Hollywood glamour, to her young sister's efforts to upstage the Queen on Coronation Day. Hurtling in and out of both World Wars, economic downfalls, the onset of the permissive '60s, and up to the present day, Ruby paints a rich and vivid portrait of family heartbreak and happiness.

Subjects

Other Editions

• Behind the scenes at the museumSt. Martin's Press1996-01-01
• Behind the scenes at the museumBlack Swan1996-01-01
• Behind the scenes at the museumWheeler Publishing1996-01-01
• Behind the Scenes at the MuseumPaperbackPicador1997-01-01
• Behind the scenes at the museum.Paragon1997-01-01
• Behind the Scenes at the MuseumPaperbackPicador USA2000-07-01