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Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. In the latest from acclaimed London novelist Coe (The Rotter's Club), the story of two cousins' friendship is keyed to a hatred that is handed down from mother to daughter across generations, as in a Greek tragedy. Evacuated from London to her aunt and uncle's Shropshire farm, Rosamond bonds with her older cousin, Beatrix, who is emotionally abused by her mother. Beatrix grows up to abuse her daughter, Thea (in one unforgettable scene, Beatrix takes a knife and flies after Thea after Thea has ruined a blouse), with repercussions that reach the next generation. All of this is narrated in retrospect by an elderly Rosamond into a tape recorder: she is recording the family's history for Imogene, Beatrix's granddaughter, who is blind, and whom Rosamond hasn't seen in 20 years. As the story progresses, it becomes clear that Rosamond's fundamental flaw and limit is her decency, a quality Coe weaves beautifully into the Shropshire and London settings—along with violence. Through relatively narrow lives on a narrow isle, Coe articulates a fierce, emotional current whose sweep catches the reader and doesn't let go until the very end. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
"A profoundly moving meditation on misfired relationships, Coe's elegaic seventh novel plumbs the depths of withheld love and emotional austerity among three generations of emotionally dysfunctional women." –James Urquhart, Financial Times
"Concentrated and controlled [with] a depth of human understanding...for the admiring reader, the question may be whether The Rain Before It Falls is a diversion for Jonathan Coe, or whether it quietly announces a new direction." –Frances Taliaferro, The Washington Post Book World
“A triumph…from it’s cryptically beautiful title to its subtly riveting narrative, from its amazing narrative voice to its satisfying and moving conclusion.” —Timothy Peters, San Francisco Chronicle
“A novel told in a simple, decent voice is as welcome as it is rare…Absorbing, graceful and melancholy.” —Karen R. Long, Cleveland Plain-Dealer
“Dignified and sure…Skillfully layered and plotted.” —The Atlantic Monthly
“A complex intergenerational mosaic of mothers and daughters.” —The New Yorker
“Precise and considered, restrained but unblinking…[Coe’s] tensest and most affecting work.” —Matthew Peters, The Boston Globe
“Jonathan Coe’s small masterpiece.” —Regina Marler, New York Observer
"Quiet, elegiac, never straying into sentiment, [The Rain Before It Falls] is perhaps the most spare yet poetic of Coe's novels." --Anna Mundow, The Boston Globe
“Coe painstakingly builds a psychological mystery evoking the suspense and dread of books such as Ian McEwan’s Atonement. This brief novel makes an emotionally overwhelming case that within ordinary women’s lives there are profound reserves of beauty and despair, crumbled hopes and the purest love.” —Kyle Smith, People
“Coe articulates a fierce, emotional current whose sweep catches the reader and doesn’t let go until the very end.” —Publishers Weekly
"Concentrated and controlled [with] a depth of human understanding...for the admiring reader, the question may be whether The Rain Before It Falls is a diversion for Jonathan Coe, or whether it quietly announces a new direction." –Frances Taliaferro, The Washington Post Book World
“A triumph…from it’s cryptically beautiful title to its subtly riveting narrative, from its amazing narrative voice to its satisfying and moving conclusion.” —Timothy Peters, San Francisco Chronicle
“A novel told in a simple, decent voice is as welcome as it is rare…Absorbing, graceful and melancholy.” —Karen R. Long, Cleveland Plain-Dealer
“Dignified and sure…Skillfully layered and plotted.” —The Atlantic Monthly
“A complex intergenerational mosaic of mothers and daughters.” —The New Yorker
“Precise and considered, restrained but unblinking…[Coe’s] tensest and most affecting work.” —Matthew Peters, The Boston Globe
“Jonathan Coe’s small masterpiece.” —Regina Marler, New York Observer
"Quiet, elegiac, never straying into sentiment, [The Rain Before It Falls] is perhaps the most spare yet poetic of Coe's novels." --Anna Mundow, The Boston Globe
“Coe painstakingly builds a psychological mystery evoking the suspense and dread of books such as Ian McEwan’s Atonement. This brief novel makes an emotionally overwhelming case that within ordinary women’s lives there are profound reserves of beauty and despair, crumbled hopes and the purest love.” —Kyle Smith, People
“Coe articulates a fierce, emotional current whose sweep catches the reader and doesn’t let go until the very end.” —Publishers Weekly
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