Giving up the Ghost: A Memoir by Hilary Mantel (English) Paperback Book

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'Like Lorna Sage's Bad Blood … A masterpiece' RACHEL CUSK

FORMATPaperback LANGUAGEEnglish CONDITIONBrand New Publisher Description

'Like Lorna Sage's Bad Blood … A masterpiece' RACHEL CUSK'Giving up the Ghost' is award-winning novelist Hilary Mantel's uniquely unusual five-part autobiography.Opening in 1995 with 'A Second Home', Mantel describes the death of her stepfather which leaves her deeply troubled by the unresolved events of her childhood. In 'Now Geoffrey Don't Torment Her' Mantel takes the reader into the muffled consciousness of her early childhood, culminating in the birth of a younger brother and the strange candlelight ceremony of her mother's 'churching'. In 'Smile', an account of teenage perplexity, Mantel describes a household where the keeping of secrets has become a way of life. Finally, at the memoir's conclusion, Mantel explains how through a series of medical misunderstandings and neglect she came to be childless and how the ghosts of the unborn like chances missed or pages unturned, have come to haunt her life as a writer.

Notes

Beautifully-written memoir from one of Britain's finest authors. Divided into five parts; Mantel dissects a childhood filled with ghosts, her mysterious convent education and her later-life distress at remaining childless. Reissue.

Author Biography

Hilary Mantel is the author of fourteen books, including A Place Of Greater Safety, Beyond Black, the memoir Giving Up The Ghost, and the short-story collection The Assassination Of Margaret Thatcher. Her two most recent novels, Wolf Hall and its sequel Bring Up The Bodies, have both been awarded the Man Booker Prize - an unprecedented achievement.

Review

'Like Lorna Sage's BAD BLOOD, GIVING UP THE GHOST is a story of childhood that is also a piece of history. Hilary Mantel's self-portrait is a masterpiece of wit, but it conjures up a time and a place and an epoch of female experience with razor-edged sobriety. That past, so thoroughly vanished, is made to live again here -- disclosed, cannily and heartbreakingly, as once it too yielded up its author's mind.' Rachel Cusk'What a remarkable writer she is. She is piercingly, even laceratingly observant, and every remembered detail has the sharpness of a good photograph. And yet for all its brilliance of detail and its black comedy the memoir is heavy with atmophere. It's a very startling and daring memoir; the more I read it the more unsettling it becomes.' Helen Dunmore'I was riveted. It's raw, it's distressing and it's full of piercing insights into a first-rate novelist's mind.' Margaret ForsterA stunning evocation of an ill-fitting childhood and a womanhood blighted by medical ineptitude. Hilary Mantel's frank and beautiful memoir is impossible to put down and impossible to forget. Clare Boylan

Promotional

The shocking and beautiful memoir from the Booker Prize-winning and bestselling author of the Wolf Hall trilogy, now a major TV series

Kirkus US Review

An English critic and novelist (Fludd, 2000, etc.) summons the ghosts of her childhood and youth. In some ways, Mantel's early life was a struggle against ignorance and the brutalities that are its children. A stepfather brooked no disagreements and referred to her as "they"; classmates engaged in creative cruelty; teachers (especially one beast named Malachy) were boring and malevolent; a sexist university law tutor was a "talentless prat in a nylon shirt"; incompetent medicos prescribed psychotropics when confronted with complexity. Mantel begins and ends with the decision to sell their second home, a place in Norfolk she and her husband called "Owl Cottage." Her stepfather's ghost remained there. Mantel believes in specters and relates one particularly harrowing experience, when she was seven, of being occupied by a formless yet substantive horror she saw in the garden. At the time she was sure it was the devil. The experience became one of the enduring presences in her life. Mantel writes about the many other realities with grace, humor, irony, and, sometimes, bitterness. She tells about how she had two fathers living in the house at the same time (her biological father shared the dwelling with her mother's lover), about her relationships with relatives and books. After reading stories about King Arthur she decided she would be a combination railway guard, like her grandfather, and knight errant. She takes us through the Davy Crockett and Elvis crazes (neither touched her much) and describes the remarkable day when she received the results of her pivotal eleven-plus exam: "Passed. So I can have a life, I thought." The most alarming passages deal with her battles with endometriosis, a chronic gynecological disease undiagnosed for a decade by purblind physicians and sexist shrinks. Along the way, she has much of interest to say about the vagaries of memory, the betrayals of the body, and the art of writing. Mantel's voice, often gently whimsical, can also snarl with anger and bite with satire. (Kirkus Reviews)

Long Description

From the double Man Booker Prize-winning author of 'Wolf Hall', a wry, shocking and beautiful memoir of childhood, ghosts, hauntings, illness and family. 'Giving up the Ghost' is award-winning novelist Hilary Mantel's uniquely unusual five-part autobiography. Opening in 1995 with 'A Second Home', Mantel describes the death of her stepfather which leaves her deeply troubled by the unresolved events of her childhood. In 'Now Geoffrey Don't Torment Her' Mantel takes the reader into the muffled consciousness of her early childhood, culminating in the birth of a younger brother and the strange candlelight ceremony of her mother's 'churching'. In 'Smile', an account of teenage perplexity, Mantel describes a household where the keeping of secrets has become a way of life. Finally, at the memoir's conclusion, Mantel explains how through a series of medical misunderstandings and neglect she came to be childless and how the ghosts of the unborn like chances missed or pages unturned, have come to haunt her life as a writer.

Review Quote

'She is by turns facetious, matter-of-fact, visionary and comical but always totally riveting.' Daily Telegraph 'Simply astonishing - clear and true.' Guardian 'An extraordinary story, sometimes comic, often grim, but most importantly it is a story of survival.' Spectator 'A masterpiece of wit…[the] past, so thoroughly vanished, is made to live again here.' Rachel Cusk 'What a remarkable writer she is. She is piercingly, even laceratingly observant … a very startling and daring memoir; the more I read it the more unsettling it becomes.' Helen Dunmore 'I was riveted. It's raw, it's distressing and it's full of piercing insights into a first-rate novelist's mind.' Margaret Forster 'A stunning evocation of an ill-fitting childhood and a womanhood blighted by medical ineptitude. Hilary Mantel's frank and beautiful memoir is impossible to put down and impossible to forget.' Clare Boylan

Feature

* Hilary Mantel is one of our most brilliant and distinctive writers. * 'Wolf Hall' has sold 220,000 copies in hardback so far. It won the Man Booker Prize 2009 and was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award. * 'Beyond Black' has sold over 80,000 paperbacks in the UK and was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction. * Part of a beautiful repackaging of Hilary Mantel's backlist - to coincide with the paperback publication of 'Wolf Hall'. Competition: The;Wolf Hall;Bring up the Bodies;Testaments;Handmaid's Tale;American Dirt;girl, woman, other;Tidelands;A place of Greater Safety. By;Hilary Mantel;Margaret Atwood;Philippa Gregory;Bill Bryson;Robert Harris;John le Carre;Alison Weir;Kate Atkinson

Description for Sales People

From the double Man Booker Prize-winning author of 'Wolf Hall', a wry, shocking and beautiful memoir of childhood, ghosts, hauntings, illness and family. 'Giving up the Ghost' is award-winning novelist Hilary Mantel's uniquely unusual five-part autobiography. Opening in 1995 with 'A Second Home', Mantel describes the death of her stepfather which leaves her deeply troubled by the unresolved events of her childhood. In 'Now Geoffrey Don't Torment Her' Mantel takes the reader into the muffled consciousness of her early childhood, culminating in the birth of a younger brother and the strange candlelight ceremony of her mother's 'churching'. In 'Smile', an account of teenage perplexity, Mantel describes a household where the keeping of secrets has become a way of life. Finally, at the memoir's conclusion, Mantel explains how through a series of medical misunderstandings and neglect she came to be childless and how the ghosts of the unborn like chances missed or pages unturned, have come to haunt her life as a writer. * Hilary Mantel is one of our most brilliant and distinctive writers. * 'Wolf Hall' has sold 220,000 copies in hardback so far. It won the Man Booker Prize 2009 and was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award. * 'Beyond Black' has sold over 80,000 paperbacks in the UK and was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction. * Part of a beautiful repackaging of Hilary Mantel's backlist - to coincide with the paperback publication of 'Wolf Hall'.

Details ISBN0007142722 Author Hilary Mantel Publisher HarperCollins Publishers Year 2004 ISBN-10 0007142722 ISBN-13 9780007142729 Format Paperback Place of Publication London Country of Publication United Kingdom DEWEY 823.914 Media Book Pages 272 Imprint Fourth Estate Ltd Language English Subtitle A Memoir Short Title Giving up the Ghost UK Release Date 2004-06-01 Publication Date 2004-06-01 Illustrator R.W. Alley Birth 1949 Affiliation San Diego State University Position Professor of English Qualifications M.D. Alternative 9780007793778 Audience General AU Release Date 2004-05-10 NZ Release Date 2004-08-19 We've got this

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