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Available
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Collection
Publication
Alfred A. Knopf (2008), Edition: 1st, Hardcover, 597 pages
Description
Fiction. Literature. HTML:In 1974, the Sellers family is transplanted from London to Sheffield in northern England. On the day they move in, the Glover household across the street is in upheaval: convinced that his wife is having an affair, Malcolm Glover has suddenly disappeared. The reverberations of this rupture will echo through the years to come as the connection between the families deepens. But it will be the particular crises of ten-year-old Tim Glover�set off by two seemingly inconsequential but ultimately indelible acts of cruelty�that will erupt, full-blown, two decades later in a shocking conclusion. Expansive and deeply felt, The Northern Clemency shows Philip Hensher to be one of our most masterly chroniclers of modern life, and a storyteller of virtuosic gifts.… (more)
Media reviews
Although Hensher has set The Northern Clemency in an introverted (if not Schoenberg-loving) middle-class suburb of Sheffield where the mines and steel mills might as well have been in London for all most people knew of them - I can vouch for this because I, like Hensher, grew up there; he and I
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went to the same comprehensive school - he is neither brave nor blithe enough to ignore the tug of history entirely. Show Less
Hensher's epic novel is set in Sheffield and spans the rise, fall and return of the vol-au-vent as a social accessory. In the opening scene, timorous hostess Katherine Glover hands round plates of nibbles while her teenage son Daniel lolls on the sofa leering at the female guests, who are perturbed
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by his ill-concealed erection. By the end of the book it is the mid-1990s: Daniel has settled down and established a modish restaurant in a redundant forge, where the starters come speared to a foil-wrapped potato. Show Less
Hensher is a brilliant anatomist of familial tension and marshals his large cast of characters deftly. He has an impeccable eye for nuances of character and setting, and the details of Seventies food and decor are lovingly done: the mushroom vol-au-vents, the white wall units with brown smoked
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glass and the gold-tasselled sofas “glowering at each other across the drawing room like a pair of retired rival strippers”. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member wandering_star
This brick of a book (750+ pages) follows the stories of two families growing up across the street from each other in 1970s Sheffield, and of the other lives which intertwine with theirs over the next 20 years. Within each section of the book, the reader is plunged into a dense network of daily
You might be able to guess from this that the book is more about the passage of time than individual personalities. The upward mobility of the two families comes to stand in for the upward mobility of the whole country's self-image, along with the shift in virtues from thrift to display.
This is also one of those books where details of furniture, clothing or language are used to identify the social status and aspirations of the characters. The 1970s seem to be drawn in more detail than later decades, although since I'm not old enough to remember them I don't know how accurate the depiction is - it seems spot-on but it may only be a good depiction of stereotypes about the 1970s. In particular, the focus is on the way that old certainties and traditions are beginning to show little cracks, indicating the seismic social shifts to come.
Katherine decides to get a job in a flower shop, because it's the first shop she's seen in the area which is about useless, wasteful beauty rather than practical, hard-wearing necessities. The owner, Nick, says he first needs to
"...talk it through with my brother. It's half his money."
"Where is he?" Katherine said.
"New York," Nick said. "I'll mention it at the weekend."
"Is he coming over, then?" Katherine said, treading cautiously. She was inexperienced in lives and brothers like that, New York brothers; she felt in danger of saying something that showed where she was and where she'd seen. What she was.
"No," Nick said. "I'll speak to him on the phone."
"Can you do that?" and "That's an awful expense," came to Katherine, but she managed to say, "Of course," in quite a natural way, and went away soon afterwards.
There were lots of things I enjoyed about this book. Despite its length, it's a page-turner, and there is a lot of dry wit - including a few occasions when I laughed out loud. (Katherine becomes obsessed with Nick to the point that she can't stop talking about him. At the same time, her youngest son is monomaniacal, in the way small boys can be, about snakes: At first Jane felt that she would never get on with her mother's conversation, the way you waited for Nick to enter it at any moment, but time wore down anything. Soon it was the same as Tim's dreaming evocation of snakes, his paragraphs of detail and longing, and they divided the long evenings between them like a pair of madmen supervising the silent sane.) The painful adolescences of the children are also very well drawn.
However, there were two big problems for me with the book. The first is that the characters, by and large, feel like representatives of types rather than real people. This meant that I didn't particularly care about them. For example, there is a scene where Katherine's husband, long into their marriage, comforts her after a life-shattering embarrassment by encouraging her to look through the family's old photograph albums. This should have been an incredibly moving incident - quietly demonstrating his delicacy, tact, and concern for her - but I didn't have the emotional engagement for it to be so.
The second is that since the story is really about the larger social changes, there's not a lot of structure, and this is most obvious at the end of the book. Hensher brings it to a fairly artificial climax. I can't help feeling that the book might have been better if it had stayed in the 70s, maybe with a few hints at what was to come, and had put more thought into its characters as individuals.
Recommended for: I'd like to recommend this to someone who remembers provincial Britain in the 1970s, to see how accurate the portrayal actually is. Other than that, I do think the way the writing captures the beginnings of social change is excellent, so I would recommend it to anyone who likes books with a very specific spirit of time. Not for anyone who needs very plot-driven books, though!
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detail, but several years go by between sections. You might be able to guess from this that the book is more about the passage of time than individual personalities. The upward mobility of the two families comes to stand in for the upward mobility of the whole country's self-image, along with the shift in virtues from thrift to display.
This is also one of those books where details of furniture, clothing or language are used to identify the social status and aspirations of the characters. The 1970s seem to be drawn in more detail than later decades, although since I'm not old enough to remember them I don't know how accurate the depiction is - it seems spot-on but it may only be a good depiction of stereotypes about the 1970s. In particular, the focus is on the way that old certainties and traditions are beginning to show little cracks, indicating the seismic social shifts to come.
Katherine decides to get a job in a flower shop, because it's the first shop she's seen in the area which is about useless, wasteful beauty rather than practical, hard-wearing necessities. The owner, Nick, says he first needs to
"...talk it through with my brother. It's half his money."
"Where is he?" Katherine said.
"New York," Nick said. "I'll mention it at the weekend."
"Is he coming over, then?" Katherine said, treading cautiously. She was inexperienced in lives and brothers like that, New York brothers; she felt in danger of saying something that showed where she was and where she'd seen. What she was.
"No," Nick said. "I'll speak to him on the phone."
"Can you do that?" and "That's an awful expense," came to Katherine, but she managed to say, "Of course," in quite a natural way, and went away soon afterwards.
There were lots of things I enjoyed about this book. Despite its length, it's a page-turner, and there is a lot of dry wit - including a few occasions when I laughed out loud. (Katherine becomes obsessed with Nick to the point that she can't stop talking about him. At the same time, her youngest son is monomaniacal, in the way small boys can be, about snakes: At first Jane felt that she would never get on with her mother's conversation, the way you waited for Nick to enter it at any moment, but time wore down anything. Soon it was the same as Tim's dreaming evocation of snakes, his paragraphs of detail and longing, and they divided the long evenings between them like a pair of madmen supervising the silent sane.) The painful adolescences of the children are also very well drawn.
However, there were two big problems for me with the book. The first is that the characters, by and large, feel like representatives of types rather than real people. This meant that I didn't particularly care about them. For example, there is a scene where Katherine's husband, long into their marriage, comforts her after a life-shattering embarrassment by encouraging her to look through the family's old photograph albums. This should have been an incredibly moving incident - quietly demonstrating his delicacy, tact, and concern for her - but I didn't have the emotional engagement for it to be so.
The second is that since the story is really about the larger social changes, there's not a lot of structure, and this is most obvious at the end of the book. Hensher brings it to a fairly artificial climax. I can't help feeling that the book might have been better if it had stayed in the 70s, maybe with a few hints at what was to come, and had put more thought into its characters as individuals.
Recommended for: I'd like to recommend this to someone who remembers provincial Britain in the 1970s, to see how accurate the portrayal actually is. Other than that, I do think the way the writing captures the beginnings of social change is excellent, so I would recommend it to anyone who likes books with a very specific spirit of time. Not for anyone who needs very plot-driven books, though!
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LibraryThing member RidgewayGirl
The Northern Clemency begins in 1974 and follows two families living in Sheffield, England for the next twenty years. The Glover family holds a party, to which many in the neighborhood are invited. When Katherine conceived of the idea, it was with the assumption that the empty house across the
I love novels like this, where ordinary people live ordinary lives, relationships strengthen or fail under adversity, children struggle through adolescence and find a place in the world, events swirl around them, some affecting them greatly, others barely noticed as they go about their lives.
For the most part, this was an excellent book. Hensher writes with compassion and understanding for the weaknesses and desires of his characters. It's only at the very end, when the least fleshed-out character behaves oddly and is treated unsympathetically by the author that I felt my interest flag a bit. It's like the author needed an event, for something more dramatic than the usual family crises, when the novel's strength lies in just those mundane affairs and relationships. Still, this was a solid novel and I look forward to reading more by this author.
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street would have new owners, but it isn't until later that the Sellers family arrives from London to take up residence. Over the years, the two families become more entwined as they experience the changes brought by those two eventful decades, from the miners' strike to the changes caused by their children growing up and beginning life as adults. I love novels like this, where ordinary people live ordinary lives, relationships strengthen or fail under adversity, children struggle through adolescence and find a place in the world, events swirl around them, some affecting them greatly, others barely noticed as they go about their lives.
For the most part, this was an excellent book. Hensher writes with compassion and understanding for the weaknesses and desires of his characters. It's only at the very end, when the least fleshed-out character behaves oddly and is treated unsympathetically by the author that I felt my interest flag a bit. It's like the author needed an event, for something more dramatic than the usual family crises, when the novel's strength lies in just those mundane affairs and relationships. Still, this was a solid novel and I look forward to reading more by this author.
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LibraryThing member carolcarter
I have gotten very little sleep in the last twenty-four hours. Hensher's opus is 738 pages and, aside from four hours sleep, I have read it straight through. Excepting Harry Potter I have not had such an enjoyable time since Jonathan Strange came out. I will do a general Booker Prize post soon but
The Northern Clemency covers a period of twenty years (from 1974 to 1994) in the lives of two families and their satellites. The Glovers and the Sellers live across the street from each other in northern England, Sheffield to be specific. As the book opens the Glovers are entertaining their neighbors and there is much speculation on their incipient newcomers. A couple of days later the Sellers move in, land in the midst of a crisis at the Glover's and witness an extraordinary act of public cruelty. There are five children between the two families and the book follows their lives as well as the four parents. All family members have intertwined relationships waxing and waning during the two decades of the book. Philip Hensher does an exemplary job of describing the seventies. While the food was different here in the U. S. I have been to parties just like the one he described. His descriptive prose is so evocative I could picture myself in the middle of many of his locales. The story travels from Sheffield to London to Sydney and back.
This book is so densely packed with characters I found myself more than once puzzling out the relationships and there is one, a cleaning lady, I still cannot connect or make sense of. Several story lines seem to just disappear which isn't necessarily a problem but it is unusual and the ending is a new one to me. It made me laugh.
Whatever I say about this book will be inadequate. I couldn't put it down. If I had to choose right now this would be my choice for the Booker Prize. We shall just have to wait and see.
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this one deserves its own review.The Northern Clemency covers a period of twenty years (from 1974 to 1994) in the lives of two families and their satellites. The Glovers and the Sellers live across the street from each other in northern England, Sheffield to be specific. As the book opens the Glovers are entertaining their neighbors and there is much speculation on their incipient newcomers. A couple of days later the Sellers move in, land in the midst of a crisis at the Glover's and witness an extraordinary act of public cruelty. There are five children between the two families and the book follows their lives as well as the four parents. All family members have intertwined relationships waxing and waning during the two decades of the book. Philip Hensher does an exemplary job of describing the seventies. While the food was different here in the U. S. I have been to parties just like the one he described. His descriptive prose is so evocative I could picture myself in the middle of many of his locales. The story travels from Sheffield to London to Sydney and back.
This book is so densely packed with characters I found myself more than once puzzling out the relationships and there is one, a cleaning lady, I still cannot connect or make sense of. Several story lines seem to just disappear which isn't necessarily a problem but it is unusual and the ending is a new one to me. It made me laugh.
Whatever I say about this book will be inadequate. I couldn't put it down. If I had to choose right now this would be my choice for the Booker Prize. We shall just have to wait and see.
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LibraryThing member karenzukor
Like a Victorian novel with a modern setting and issues. Set in Sheffield. Detailed character exposition. Well written, though the scenes with people (which dominate the book) are better than the descriptions (a minor matter.) Would like to read more by this author.
LibraryThing member owenre
This wonderful middleclass novel! The characters, decent and hardworking, or not, normal and well-adjusted or slightly dotty, but cleanly drawn and identifiable come from my life and yours. We know them and have met them or variations of them and it is engaging to think of how they confront the
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issues of their very ordinary lives. Marriage, work, children, houses, geography, adjustments from urban to rural, appearances, dissapointments, cars, what to make for dinner, school, neighbors it is all here, the components of the middleclass life. Then there is the language. Nearly all of the writing is immediate and direct, but there are parts and phrases that are so perfect that I read them over again, more slowly and had a sigh of complete delight. The stay at the horrible hotel, the description of he trial, the unsettling game at the grade school with such unfortunate consequences. There are phrases such as "elective cheerfulness" to describe kitchen decor or "a voice so weary with tragedy" for an announcement in a grocery store. As I went to search out these tidbits, I realized that I wanted to read the book again, even though I have a tower of good reads waiting. It was that good and it was that satisfying to see the development of the characters and the foreshadowing of outcomes as the novel unfolds. Show Less
LibraryThing member RobertKearney
An very detailed and long study that follows two generations of two family in Northern England through the 1970s. Interesting in places and worth reading but not something I could read continuously. I found I had to take it in pieces to avoid being overloaded by details.
LibraryThing member TigsW
This book has excellent character development but is overly long and rambling given the storyline. I kept going to the end, but often felt frustrated. It does have some wonderful use of language but at other times I had to reread sentences to get their meaning. The book was generally good, but I'm
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surprised it was shortlisted for the Booker. Show Less
LibraryThing member davidroche
Don't be alarmed at the imposing proportions of this splendid tome. What is inside is not only appealing but also eminently accessible as the story of several families and neighbours unfolds from the 70's over twenty or more years. Often amusing and occasionally startling, this sashays from Mike
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Leigh territory to Vikram Seth-like narrative and dialogue. The book amply rewards the reader for the investment of their time with the completion of an epic journey. Show Less
LibraryThing member bobbieharv
By the end of this very long book I felt as though I had dropped into the lives of all the people who lived on this one street in Sheffield. I kept thinking about them and missed them. It's an old-fashioned book, very relaxing to sink into.
LibraryThing member hazelk
The early chapters when the focus was on the younger members of the Sheffield suburban households were for me the more successful sections of this overlong novel.
Although not usually nerdy I got quite aggravated by some sloppy style and punctuation: some sentences I had to re-read to get some sense
If it hadn't been for the fact that I live not far from Sheffield and also lived through the eras described I don't think I would have persevered. It was all quite mundane. Perhaps, to give the author his due, this was part of his aim.
Although not usually nerdy I got quite aggravated by some sloppy style and punctuation: some sentences I had to re-read to get some sense
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out of (but not in the way of re-reading Henry James).If it hadn't been for the fact that I live not far from Sheffield and also lived through the eras described I don't think I would have persevered. It was all quite mundane. Perhaps, to give the author his due, this was part of his aim.
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LibraryThing member idiotgirl
Audiobook. Read because it was shortlisted for the Booker. A story about English suburb in northern England from 70s through 80s or so (Thatcher through Major). Follows mostly two families who live across the street in the housing development. Kids more or less the same age. I ended up liking this
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book a lot. One of those books that ended--and I was sure there was another section. Just left me there. But the more I thought about it I was more or less okay with the ending (though I mostly admire endings that either go for it, not wishy washy, is this happy or sad, death and disaster or what???) The language is often surprising and arresting. I came to care about these characters. And become frustrated when I didn't learn more. A very good book. Show Less
LibraryThing member Eyejaybee
Quite clearly, without let or hindrance, without mitigation or qualification, this was the worst novel I have read this year. Reading this book was like being water-boarded, just without the fun bits.
LibraryThing member bcquinnsmom
When you're ready to start this one, make sure you've got everything done that you need to do, because it's hard to stop reading. At 700+ pages, you need to know what you're getting into. I didn't and have stayed up way too late the last few nights to finish it.
The story centers on two families in
Beyond that, Hensher's writing is very descriptive and quite good. His characterizations are excellent, and should be; this is not really so much plot driven but more character driven. It is a bit long, and I found myself thinking that maybe there could have been less conversation in some parts to move things along. But that's just me.
Would I vote for it to win the Booker? Probably not, but it was still a fine read and one I can recommend.
The story centers on two families in
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Sheffield: The Glovers, who are from the area, and the Sellers, who have at the beginning of the story (1970s) just moved from London. We follow the story through the 1990s. The Sellers don't realize it, but they are moving into the neighborhood at a time when the Glovers are going through a crisis: Mr. Glover has left the home without saying anything, and Katherine's so frustrated that she performs a most senseless act of cruelty right out in front of everyone, none the least of whom are her children, especially her son Tim. This sort of sets the tone and gets the story up and running very quickly. But the Sellers have their own problems; for example, the kids aren't fitting in well at all at school because they're not native to the area. The 1970s leave indelible marks on both families, and their stories weave in and out throughout the years. You can't stop reading, because you really want to know what happens with everyone.Beyond that, Hensher's writing is very descriptive and quite good. His characterizations are excellent, and should be; this is not really so much plot driven but more character driven. It is a bit long, and I found myself thinking that maybe there could have been less conversation in some parts to move things along. But that's just me.
Would I vote for it to win the Booker? Probably not, but it was still a fine read and one I can recommend.
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LibraryThing member Clif
Reading this book gave rise to mixed feelings of fascination and wearisomeness. The Northern Clemency is part history, part sociology and totally compelling—but too long--read. The story is sprawling, detailed and ambitious in scope and design. Hensher’s superbly nuanced and detailed writing
(*I listened to the audio format of the book)
This book is much the same as life for most of us, ordinary and boring. That doesn't mean life isn't worth living. And it also doesn't mean that this book isn't worth reading. If you like sprawling literary evocations of familial drama, then this book is for you. After getting half way through the book I began to care a bit about the characters and wanted to know where life took them. I kept thinking, surely a book this long must have something worthwhile in the plot somewhere. In the end the story was pretty much like real life--some things are resolved, some are not; some things are better, some are not; there is a death, but life goes on for others.
This book comes about as close as possible to providing the experience of living 20 years without actually using up 20 years of time to do so. I guess a another way of saying this is, reading this book seems like it takes 20 years, but actually it only takes 20 hours to read.
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makes the relative mundanity of these family’s lives almost compulsively readable. The book was so compelling that it kept me listening* even though I kept thinking to myself, “Gaaawd, I can’t stand all this excruciating detail!” It’s just too long and has more extraneous detail than I wanted to know. (*I listened to the audio format of the book)
This book is much the same as life for most of us, ordinary and boring. That doesn't mean life isn't worth living. And it also doesn't mean that this book isn't worth reading. If you like sprawling literary evocations of familial drama, then this book is for you. After getting half way through the book I began to care a bit about the characters and wanted to know where life took them. I kept thinking, surely a book this long must have something worthwhile in the plot somewhere. In the end the story was pretty much like real life--some things are resolved, some are not; some things are better, some are not; there is a death, but life goes on for others.
This book comes about as close as possible to providing the experience of living 20 years without actually using up 20 years of time to do so. I guess a another way of saying this is, reading this book seems like it takes 20 years, but actually it only takes 20 hours to read.
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LibraryThing member TheBookJunky
A wannabe Franzen book. Didnt work for me.
LibraryThing member chrystal
Full of lifes small details, relationships and how they are affected by geography. An overall theme is that no one really ever reveals all of themself to another, only rarely. I loved the very English taste of this book, the language and setting, and found that I didn't much like any of the
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characters but their stories were compelling. Show Less
LibraryThing member lizchris
This begins in 1970s suburban Sheffield, the story of two families spanning two decades.
The lives feel ordinary to start with. Small events - a teenage girl's flirtation with a removal man, a mother taking a part-time job after many years looking after her family - sow the seeds for big drama
The backdrop of social events, like the rage caused by the Miners' Strike in the 1980s, felt more natural than similar treatments in other novels.
Very thoughtful about families and how childhood experience can potentially shape whole lives (if you let it).
This is a long novel, with characters popping in and out of the narrative. I had to make a note of who was in which family to enable me to navigate the story.
The lives feel ordinary to start with. Small events - a teenage girl's flirtation with a removal man, a mother taking a part-time job after many years looking after her family - sow the seeds for big drama
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later. The backdrop of social events, like the rage caused by the Miners' Strike in the 1980s, felt more natural than similar treatments in other novels.
Very thoughtful about families and how childhood experience can potentially shape whole lives (if you let it).
This is a long novel, with characters popping in and out of the narrative. I had to make a note of who was in which family to enable me to navigate the story.
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LibraryThing member KimLarae
I tried. I really tried.
LibraryThing member Steve38
A chunky family saga set in Sheffield starting in the 70s and ending 20 years later. A definite start but a meandering dribble of an end. Interesting enough as it went along. The parents and children of two neighbouring families have each of their lives periodically investigated and laid out.
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Middle class life in a northern English city in the 70s and 80s. There's not much more to say about it. Show Less
Subjects
Awards
Booker Prize (Longlist — 2008)
Dublin Literary Award (Longlist — 2010)
The Morning News Tournament of Books (Short List — 2009)
Commonwealth Writers' Prize (Shortlist — 2009)
Salon Book Award (2008)
Language
Original publication date
2008
Physical description
608 p.; 6.42 x 1.46 inches
ISBN
1400044480 / 9781400044481