A Natural Curiosity by Margaret Drabble

This sequel to The Radiant Way describes life in 1980s Britain and is set in a Yorkshire city to which some of the characters have decamped from London. It describes the relationship between Alix and Paul, an imprisoned mass murderer. Editorial Reviews From Publishers Weekly Continuing her ironic depiction of mean, cold, ugly, divided, tired . . . post-imperial, post-industrial Britain, and again taking up the lives of Liz Headleand, Alix Bowen and (only tangentially) Esther Breuer--met in The Radiant Way --Drabble here produces a tighter and more cohesive story, though sometimes burdened with polemic digressions. Obsessed with divining the origin of his gruesome deeds, Alix visits mass murderer Paul Whitmore in prison; psychotherapist Liz, outspoken in her views of child sexuality and sexual abuse, muses that human life is nothing but a history of deepening psychosis. They and other characters confront the problems of racism, international terrorism, random violence, family relationships in the era of divorce, unemployment and urban blight--a cross-section of the ills for which they hold Margaret Thatcher partially responsible. Alix finds an answer of sorts to the mystery of Whitmore's character; the puzzle of Liz's mother's life, left hanging in the earlier book, is solved; Liz's sister Shirley Harper temporarily disappears and returns a new woman. While Drabble's quirky characters often seem to exist to vent their author's spleen, they animate an involving story. 30,000 first printing; first serial to Harper's; author tour. Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From Library Journal Drabble's latest is a worthy sequel to The Radiant Way ( LJ 10/15/87 ) , continuing its story of enduring friendship among three vibrant women. Leading very different lives, they are united in an incessant desire for truth in matters large and small. Psychiatrist Liz Headleand keeps one eye on her ex-husband's search for a missing colleague and the other on her sister's alarming behavior after a family tragedy. Esther Breuer, living uneasily on the Continent, ponders her own heart. In northern England, Alix Bowen divides her time between visits to a mass murderer and the archives of a reclusive poet. A satisfying denouement reveals at last the secret of Liz's parentage. The diverse plotlines develop amidst an abundance of social detail about 1980s Britain, providing a rich and fascinating texture. A winner; highly recommended. --Starr E. Smith, Georgetown Univ. Lib., Washington, D.C. Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Review A brilliantly accomplished and wonderfully entertaining morality tale for our times. -Vancouver Province Drabble's observations are everywhere translated into a wry humour with a bite that bruises more than tragedy itself.... -Globe and Mail Clearly a novelist with a social conscience, and with a firm grasp on the hearts and minds of the English middle class, Drabble is like a contemporary Dickens. -Toronto Star [Drabble creates] a fascinating cross-section of convincing imaginary lives. She credits her readers with natural curiosity, then amply rewards them. -Time Magazine An excellent, artful and acute novel....Drabble harnesses her journalistic impressions to a novelist's invention and leaves us in stunned, even cheerful contemplation (God help us) of the meaning of life. -Montreal Gazette [Drabble is] a perennially entertaining and intelligent novelist who can always be relied upon for a provocative as well as a good read. -Ottawa Citizen An intriguing page-tuner....Drabble's characters are too intelligent to become enmeshed in melodrama. Their voices are vigorous, their actions compelling....Thoughtful and compassionate.... -London Free Press Drabble's characters have lodged themselves in my mind....The compelling vitality of the characters with their attendant curiosity buoys up the novel -Edmonton Journal Margaret Drabble has defined our times better than any other woman novelist....The novel stands on its own as a great document of British life at the end of the century....Energizing. -Chatelaine [Drabble] invites us to see beyond the filth and horror of modern life to the world of possibilities in our own lives, where we also have the power to write our own endings. -Winnipeg Free Press [Drabble's] talent for observing contemporary Britain - political, social and economic -is as intelligent as ever.... -Hamilton Spectator With humour and sympathy, Drabble uses [her characters'] stories to illuminate the social decay in Britain (and by extension all of the West) through a series of powerful images, from serial murder to suicide. -Books in Canada --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From the Inside Flap Rich in character and incident, A Natural Curiosity sweeps the reader from smart London townhouses to a run-down embassy in the Middle East, from the splendours of the Musée d?Orsay in Paris to drowsy afternoons in the hills of sunny Italy, as we re-encounter Alix, Liz, and Esther, three erudite, middle-aged, Cambridge-educated women living in Margaret Thatcher?s Britain. The story opens in 1987, when Alix, a conscientious social worker, befriends a convicted killer, when a dazed housewife begins an affair with a stranger after her husband?s suicide, and a comfort-loving TV executive undertakes to rescue a friend who?s been kidnapped by terrorists. A Natural Curiosity is wondrous and astute, and in Margaret Drabble?s hands, the seemingly improbable becomes vividly real. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. About the Author Margaret Drabble was born in Sheffield in 1939 and educated at Cambridge. She was awarded a CBE in 1980. Her many novels include The Radiant Way, (1987), A Natural Curiosity, (1989), The Gates of Ivory (1991), The Peppered Moth (2000), The Seven Sisters (2002), The Red Queen (2004) and The Sea Lady (2006), all of which are published by Penguin. Margaret Drabble is married to the biographer Michael Holroyd and lives in London. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.