'Our new house was waiting for us, eager, expectant, and empty'
Shirley Jackson skewered the trials of domestic life in 1950s America with wry wit and uncanny precision. In this sequel to Life Among the Savages, her four offspring have now grown into fully-fledged demons. As their house starts to burst at the seams, the Jackson clan somehow manage (without really planning it) to move into a larger home, only to take the chaos - absent furniture, vanishing children, misbehaving refrigerators, an avalanche of books - right along with them.
'Hilarious, subversive, sharp without being lethal, and loving without an ounce of sentiment, Shirley Jackson's more-or-less autobiographical account of life as a mother of four and faculty wife (and brilliant writer) is an eternal, comic joy' Amy Bloom
Sethe is now miles away from Sweet Home, the farm where she was kept as a slave. Unable to forget the unspeakable horrors that took place there, she is haunted by the violent spectre of her dead child, the daughter who died nameless and whose tombstone is etched with a single word, ‘Beloved’. A tale of brutality, horror and, above all, love at any cost, Beloved is Toni Morrison’s enduring masterpiece and best-known work.
'"Beloved," is a heartbreaking testimony to the ongoing ravages of slavery, and should be read by all' - Margaret Atwood