Îngaduinţa nordului

From the author of The Mulberry Empire: a new novel of great dramatic and emotional depth—a sweeping, powerfully engaging story of ordinary lives that are profoundly shaped by the larger forces of history.

In 1974, the Sellers are 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 be felt for years 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, decades later.

These lives unfold against a brilliantly rendered backdrop of twentieth-century English history at the dawn of the Thatcher era: prosperity for some and disenfranchisement for others, which will have a drastic impact on both families.

Expansive and deeply felt, The Northern Clemency shows Philip Hensher to be one of our most masterly chroniclers of English life, and a storyteller of virtuosic gifts.