kate atkinson behind the scenes at the museum review

When the war ends, she presumes her role with the agency is finished as well.Ī decade later, Juliet is producing children’s radio dramas, and the personnel overlap between MI5 and the BBC is unusually high. The work is mostly dull (transcribing) and occasionally terrifying (shimmying down drainpipes). Juliet is eventually given a nom de guerre and sent to infiltrate a group of wealthy appeasers. Quickly plucked from the initial tasks of departmental filing and collating, she is placed in an agency-owned apartment, where she transcribes recordings of the secret comings and goings of a group of fascist sympathizers. Eager to assist in the war effort, she joins MI5. Readers are then plunged back to the 1940s, when 18-year-old Juliet finds herself at loose ends after the death of her mother. Transcription starts at the end of a life when, at 60, Juliet Armstrong is hit by a car in a London street. Transcription, based on the life of a former Secret Service worker during World War II, is no exception.Ī hallmark of Atkinson’s work is her playful use of time. 'Stunning.Out-Copperfields David Copperfield.A powerhouse of storytelling, a treasure chest bursting with the painful, pitiful, sad, always fascinating details of the most ordinary of lives.A novel from the multiple award-winning author Kate Atkinson ( Behind the Scenes at the Museum, Life After Life) is always cause for celebration. 'Really comic, really tragic, bracingly unsentimental.What a triumph! What joy!'- Boston Sunday Globe 'Startlingly original.A poignant and beautifully wrought portrait of a young girl's growth.'-Johanna Stoberock, The Seattle Times

Every family has them, though seldom are they handled with the winsome wit and wisecrackery that make Behind the Scenes at the Museum such a smart and funny read.'- The Washington Times 'Scoundrels, malcontents, misfits, and cheats. 'Delivers its jokes and tragedies as efficiently as Dickens once delivered his, though Atkinson has a game plan more sophisticated than Dickens's.Will dazzle readers for years to come.'-Hilary Mantel, London Review of Books 'Remarkable.A multigenerational tale of a spectacularly dysfunctional Yorkshire family and one of the funniest works of fiction to come out of Britain in years.'-Ben Macintyre, The New York Times Book Review

'Breathtaking.Kate Atkinson's luminescent imagery is sure and sophisticated, poetic and darkly comic.Astonishing.'-Amanda Heller, The Boston Globe

Kate atkinson behind the scenes at the museum review