The Radiant Way

Description

1979. Three old Cambridge friends are brought together at a party to celebrate New Year's Eve and the end of a decade. Esther, Liz and Alix first met in Cambridge in the early Fifties, a time when their futures held glittering promise. But with the dawn of the Thatcher era, everything changed. Now middle-aged, how will these confident women cope with the personal and professional challenges they will come to face? 'A sublime example of Drabble's mastery in unravelling the intricacies of intimate relationships' - The Times

Dame Margaret Drabble was born in Sheffield in 1939 and was educated at Newnham College, Cambridge. She is the author of twenty highly acclaimed novels. She has also written biographies, screenplays and was the editor of the Oxford Companion to English Literature. She was appointed CBE in 1980, and made DBE in the 2008 Honours list. She was also awarded the 2011 Golden PEN Award for a Lifetime's Distinguished Service to Literature. She is married to the biographer Michael Holroyd.

'The emotional withdrawal proposed to us in The Radiant Way is truly radical . . . This novel is a valuable specimen of a new consciousness' - New York Times 'A sublime example of Drabble's mastery in unravelling the intricacies of intimate relationships' - The Times 'Humane, intelligent, engrossing' - Independent 'An important book - entertaining, sad, witty, lively, dense with detail' - Evening Standard 'The novels brim with sharply observed life and the author's seemingly infinite sympathy for ordinary women' - New Yorker 'In Britain, Drabble tells us, ambition and idealism are damned equally. The women survive, detached from the world they were so engaged in a decade earlier. The men do worse . . . Drabble surrounds her chilling message - violent disintegration lurks just under the surface - with all kinds of skilful social detail . . . when she takes off into her own elegant figures and jumps, she puts on quite a show' - LA Times