The Facts Of Life

World Fantasy Award and British Fantasy award winner for Best Novel as well as L'Grand Prix de l' Imaginaire for Best Foreign Language Novel, The Facts Of Life is one of Graham Joyce's most acclaimed works. Set during and just after the second world war, this is the story of the Vines, an extraordinary family of seven sisters. Presided over by Martha who has the gift of foresight and the remarkable ability to communicate with the dead, the women live out tangled lives built on loyalty and betrayal, love and frustration. Born into this family is Frank, the illegitimate son of Cassie, Martha's youngest daughter. Realizing that Cassie, an unpredictable free spirit, can't be trusted alone with a newborn, Martha undertakes to ensure his care by informing the family that they will all be responsible for raising him. Passed around from sister to sister, Frank is the innocent witness to a world transitioning from war to peace and from the mundane into magical. The sisters who have witnessed Martha's extraordinary psychic powers begin to wonder if Frank has inherited her talent. The novel contains haunting images and descriptions of the Coventry blitz and charts the city's regeneration as Frank grows into a young man. 'This is the kind of book I love to read! It's an epic saga about family, love, war, and magic. Joyce's characters are memorable. They remind me of some of my own weird relatives. I have not been so charmed by a novel in a long time.' - Isabel Allende 'Mr Joyce skillfully reigns in his oddball menagerie and...Makes his remarkable, magical little story a memorable one.' The Washington Times 'Graham Joyce creates families to break your heart.' The Guardian 'Joyce is brilliant...(this) is a book about beginnings that are also continuities and about ordinary lives stranger than casual inspection knows.' Time Out (London) 'Joyce walks with the grace of a circus star, or a Henry James, on that narrow line between seeing and being.' Salon.com 'A rich and engaging account of particular lives amid history and great change, narrated with real grace by a master...' Kirkus 'This is a story about family bonds, the love and devotion that a mother has for her children, and the will to survive in all of us.' The Historical Society 'The Facts Of Life is simply formidable.' The Third Alternative '(A) heartwarming story, marvelously told' Denver Rocky Mountain News