Their family has always been a living thing, its members encompassing supporting each other, confident in the indestructible bond of kinship. Murdoch and Janet Saunders, Hugh, Stephanie, Katrina, Malcolm, and Humphrey the dog. Murdoch stands at the head of the family, a highly respected novelist. But Janet is its true centre. She has guarded them all, protected them from wavering doubt and disillusion. She has always been there. Now the last of her brood has left home leaving her without a purpose. Her children plan fresh careers for her without understanding her loss. Murdoch too is undergoing some kind of transformation. Perhaps Janet, so sensitive to his writing gift, realises that this also is slipping away? Abandoned, suddenly adrift in a sea of black despair, she has no shelter, no moorings, no direction. How will she manage? How will her family manage? Unblinkingly honest, Mary Hocking's novel is warm, refreshing and utterly contemporary.
Les informations fournies dans la section « Synopsis » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.
Born in in London in 1921, Mary was educated at Haberdashers' Aske's Girls School, Acton. During the Second World War she served in the Women's Royal Naval Service (Wrens) attached to the Fleet Air Arm Meteorology branch and then briefly with the Signal Section in Plymouth.
Writing was in her blood. Juggling her work as a local government officer in Middlesex Education Department with writing, at first short stories for magazines and pieces for The Times Educational Supplement, she then had her first book, The Winter City, published in 1961.
The book was a success and enabled Mary to relinquish her full time occupation to devote her time to writing. Even so, when she came to her beloved Lewes in 1961, she still took a part-time appointment, as a secretary, with the East Sussex Educational Psychology department.
Long before family sagas had become cult viewing, she had embarked upon the 'Fairley Family' trilogy - Good Daughters, Indifferent Heroes, and Welcome Strangers - books which give her readers a faithful, realistic and uncompromising portrayal of ordinary people caught up in extraordinary times, between the years of 1933 and 1946.
For many years she was an active member of the 'Monday Lit', a Lewes-based group which brought in current writers and poets to speak about their work. Equally, she was an enthusiastic supporter of Lewes Little Theatre, where she found her role as 'prompter' the most satisfying, and worshipped at the town's St Pancras RC Church.
Les informations fournies dans la section « A propos du livre » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.