Human Croquet
A Novel
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ISBN10: 0312186886
ISBN13: 9780312186883
Trade Paperback
352 Pages
$26.00
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
Part fairy tale, part mystery, part coming-of-age novel, this novel tells the story of Isobel Fairfax, a girl growing up in Lythe, a typical 1960s British suburb. But Lythe was once the heart of an Elizabethan feudal estate and home to a young English tutor named William Shakespeare, and as Isobel investigates the strange history of her family, her neighbors, and her village, she occasionally gets caught in Shakespearean time warps. Meanwhile, she gets closer to the shocking truths about her missing mother, her war-hero father, and the hidden lives of her close friends and classmates. A stunning feat of imagination and storytelling, Human Croquet is rich with the disappointments and possibilities every family shares.
Reviews
Praise for Human Croquet
"Atkinson's language is a joy . . . Like all the best fairy tales, Human Croquet is appalling and disturbing even as it is reassuring."—Valerie Sayers, Commonweal
"Human Croquet offers further proof that Kate Atkinson is off and running in a quite fantastic direction of her own devising . . . Full of ambiguities and neat surprises."—Katharine Weber, The New York Times Book Review
"A literary tour de force of emotional and linguistic complexity . . . Atkinson specializes in audacity, which she offers up with irresistible humor and grace . . . If all of this is great fun, it's also surprisingly moving."—Rebecca Radner, The San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle
"Intelligent, sympathetic, and terribly funny, this is simply a wonderful book."—Kate Tuttle, Boston Book Review
"Vivid and intriguing . . . fizzes and crackles along."—Penelope Lively, The Independent
Reviews from Goodreads
About the author
Kate Atkinson
