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Published Jun 2022
176 pages
Genre: Short Stories
Publication Information
Learning to Talk is a dazzling collection of short stories from the two-time winner of the Booker Prize and #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Wolf Hall trilogy.
In the wake of Hilary Mantel's brilliant conclusion to her award-winning Wolf Hall trilogy, this collection of loosely autobiographical stories locates the transforming moments of a haunted childhood.
Absorbing and evocative, these drawn-from-life stories begin in the 1950s in an insular northern village "scoured by bitter winds and rough gossip tongues." For the child narrator, the only way to survive is to get up, get on, get out. In "King Billy Is a Gentleman," the child must come to terms with the loss of a father and the puzzle of a fading Irish heritage. "Curved Is the Line of Beauty" is a story of friendship, faith and a near-disaster in a scrap-yard. The title story sees our narrator ironing out her northern vowels with the help of an ex-actress with one lung and a Manchester accent. In "Third Floor Rising," she watches, amazed, as her mother carves out a stylish new identity.
With a deceptively light touch, Mantel illuminates the poignant experiences of childhood that leave each of us forever changed.
"Learning to Talk provides beautifully written glimpses into Hilary Mantel's upbringing, and her Preface places the stories into her autobiographical context. This provides the background that this was written over many years as an exploration of self-history, reflecting the growth of a talented woman with a complicated background. Yet, readers are only given limited snapshots and left wanting more, leaning against a windowpane and gazing longingly at a tightly confined and curated world populated with rich language and prose." - Jennifer Hon Khalaf, BookBrowse
"In seven deftly crafted stories that she calls 'autoscopic' rather than autobiographical, two-time Man Booker Prize winner Mantel takes a 'distant, elevated perspective' on her life growing up in the English Midlands region...Sharp, unsentimental tales from a writer haunted by her past." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"[E]xpertly crafted...A highly recommended collection quietly probing our deep, everyday sorrows." - Library Journal (starred review)
"Two-time Booker winner Mantel departs from the broad canvas of Tudor history for a revelatory collection drawing on her childhood in a northern English moorland village...Throughout, the author's humanity shines through." - Publishers Weekly
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Photo: John Haynes
Hilary Mantel is the two-time winner of the Booker Prize for her best-selling novels, Wolf Hall, and its sequel, Bring Up the Bodies. The final novel of the Wolf Hall trilogy, The Mirror & the Light, debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and won critical acclaim around the globe. Mantel is the author of over a dozen books, including A Place of Greater Safety, Beyond Black, and the memoir Giving Up the Ghost.
Name Pronunciation
Hilary Mantel: man-TELL
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