Début du XXe siècle. Dans leur ferme du Missouri, Matthew et Callie Soames élèvent leurs quatre filles, aux personnalités différentes mais au caractère bien trempé : Jessica leur brisera le cœur en s’enfuyant dès sa dix-huitième année, Leonie tombera amoureuse de l’homme dont il ne fallait pas s’amouracher, Mary Jo s’arrachera au cocon familial pour aller faire carrière à New York, et le destin de Mathy, l’enfant sauvage, se conclura par la plus terrible des tragédies. Ces années durant, malgré chagrins et déceptions, les Soames parviendront, malgré tout, à préserver les liens d’amour, qui forment le ciment même de leur famille.
Critical acclaim for Kate Atkinson:"Startlingly original" (Johanna Stoberock, The Seattle Times)"Really comic, really tragic, bracingly unsentimental." (The Boston Sunday Globe"An effervescent, affecting delight." (Rebecca Radner, The San Francisco Examiner Chronicle)"Atkinson's language is a joy." (Valerie Sayers, Commonweal)"Full of ambiguities and neat surprises." (Katharine Weber, The New York Times Book Review)"Vivid and intriguing....fizzes and crackles along." (Penelope Lively, The Independent)"Luminescent....sure and sophisticated, poetic and darkly comic."(Amanda Heller, The Boston Globe)On a weather-beaten island off the coast of Scotland, Effie and her mother, Nora, take refuge in the large, mouldering house of their ancestors and tell each other stories.Nora, at first, recounts nothing that Effie really wants to hear-like who her real father was.Effie tells various versions of her life at college, where in fact she lives in a lethargic relationship with bob, a student who never goes to lectures, seldom gets out of bed, and to whom Klingons are as real as the French and the Germans.But as mother and daughter spin their tales, strange things are happening around them.Why is Effie being followed?Is someone killing the old people?And where is the mysterious yellow dog?In a brilliant comic narrative which explores the nonsensical power of language and meaning, Kate Atkinson has created another magical masterpiece.
