This is one of the earliest of Bragg's novels, originally published
in 1970. Along with The Hired Man and Kingdom Come it forms part of
his Cumbrian trilogy. The story deals with the life of Joseph
Tallentire, a normal, uneducated boy who wants more than fate has
given him. It opens with his life in service as a teenager and
charts his time in the RAF during the Second World War and how he
settles back into village life in Thurston after the war.
Throughout this unusual novel, the narration shifts between members
of the Tallentire family. The reader sees into the minds of Betty,
the wife and mother of the family who is frustrated with her life
and her husband, and Douglas and Harry (Betty and Joseph's sons) as
they take very different routes towards happiness. Bragg looks at
men from three generations of the family, showing how life has
changed for the working class of Cumbria during the course of the
20th century. The novel is not always easy to read, as characters
often slip into local dialect and the stream-of-consciousness
passages are demanding. It is, however, very rewarding and full of
humour, sadness and unvoiced frustrations. The scenes in Joseph's
pub seem particularly true to life and are all the more funny and
frightening because of this. The book has lost none of its charm or
relevancy. The descriptions are beautiful, the characters humorous
and the situations poignant. An excellent, intelligent novel.
(Kirkus UK)
Joseph Tallantire has hope and ambition - like his father before
him he is determined to make something of himself and improve his
lot. But life is not easy for an uneducated young man in Cumberland
before and during World War II, and Joseph's struggle against the
odds is the subject of this moving and evocative novel. Suffering
hardship and humiliation but eventually achieving a position of
some independence, Joseph serves as a tribute to the many like him
who lived through one of Britain's periods of greatest social
change.
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