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The Clothes on Their Backs

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The Clothes On Their Backs | Book by Linda Grant | Official Publisher Page | Simon & Schuster

Sandor is complicated-a slum lord, a pimp, a survivor of slave labor camps during WWII, an escapee from communist Hungary. He is by turns the face of evil and the soul of human kindness. It's interesting to think about how frightening the skinhead movement must have been to those who had survived the first go-round with Fascism.

Nov 02, Leah rated it really liked it Recommended to Leah by: Graham. Shelves: booker-prize-winner-or-shortlist. This book was a birthday present, and it's not a mystery why it was chosen for me. The story contains, among other things: slumlords, Jews, immigrants to the UK, the UK, and as the name suggests clothes.

The giver probably over-estimates my interest in clothing and the acquisition of clothing, as many men do of many women, but it's a forgivable mistake. My own interest in clothing is one of necessity, although not in the strictest sense of needing it to survive.

I don't love clothing for its ow This book was a birthday present, and it's not a mystery why it was chosen for me. I don't love clothing for its own sake, for the most part, but because it allows you to present an image of yourself. It's completely superficial and shouldn't matter, but it seems to. I revert to adolescent angst about what to wear to important events, and occasionally find myself half-naked in front of the bedroom mirror and unable to get dressed for work. The author explores self-definition through clothing, through this idea that clothing can define you or, maybe, reflect you.

Although I think this is meant to be the overarching theme of the book, I found it to be the least interesting or compelling aspect of the novel, even as I relate to it. The stories in the book--of a family history that has been largely hidden from the narrator and of her early years as an adult--are far more interesting and compelling to me than the theme suggested by the title. The characters are vivid, the writing is very clean, and the stories told are genuinely interesting.

Apr 26, Jessica rated it really liked it. I thought this book was great. I don't understand some of the 2 star ratings and people who said it was boring. It is a coming of age story, a story of discovering your roots, and a story of coming to terms with who you are and where you come from. Clothing does play an important role, as the title suggests, but in a way that paints important pictures of the main characters - Vivian Kovaks and her uncle Sandor.

Clothing is very important to each character but for entirely different reasons.

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For I thought this book was great. For Sandor it is about showing off, looking important, for Vivian it is for hiding in a sense. But for each of them, the clothes they wear is also a way of reinventing themselves. And in a way it is also what connects them to each other. I found parts of this book to be humorous, and parts to be sad, but very compelling throughout.

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A very good exploration of the immigrant experience and even more so the experience of those first generation off-spring who are often forced to live between two worlds - the culture their family comes from and the culture of this new environment. May 03, Evelyn rated it it was ok. What a disappointment! This book was shortlisted for the Mann Booker Prize so I figured it was a good bet. Instead, the story was really, really predictable.

This is just another coming of age, child of holocaust survivors story, the wrinkle here being the immigrant parents don't tell their daughter about their past at all, and she discovers their history through a rogue uncle she meets when she's a young adult.

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The plot telegraphed all it's 'surprises' from the get-go. Some of the writing was l What a disappointment! Some of the writing was lovely, even graceful, but overall, not worth the time. Jul 24, Doug H - On Hiatus rated it really liked it. Deceptively quiet. A deep exploration of personal family secrets on one level. An even deeper meditation on Fascism and the universal immigrant experience on another level. Very well done. Dec 27, Felicity rated it really liked it. How could anyone not like a book in which the author has one of her characters state the following about George W.

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But much of it is also set in How could anyone not like a book in which the author has one of her characters state the following about George W. But much of it is also set in the past. Like Hensher's "Northern Clemency" also nominated for the Booker Prize , this is a book about a family and the tensions within. Both books are very different--in my mind, you can clearly see the impact here of the family's experiences in Hungary and the different concepts of "success" each brother imagines for himself as emigrants. Nonetheless, this book also raises the very interesting, even if impossible to answer, question of how much the choices that each brother makes are actually influenced by the move to Britain.

To what extent, in other words, has each brother been formed by the forces of nature and nurture? They form nice bookends to each other, set, as they are, in the same time period, but in very different parts of England with the central protagonists shaped by very different pasts.

Aug 30, LindyLouMac rated it really liked it. The narrator of the novel is Vivien Kovacs the only child of Hungarian immigrant parents, Ervin and Berta who keep themselves to themselves and are even secretive about their past with their own daughter. This sets off a chain of mainly tragic events but at least she learns the truth about her family. This paragraph from the novel sums up for me how Linda Grant used clothes in this novel as an allegory of personalities.

They change you from the outside in. A million imperfections mar us. So the most you can do is put on a new dress, a different tie. Sep 17, ShareStories rated it it was ok Shelves: historical-fiction.

The Clothes on Their Backs , by Linda Grant is a story of a first generation American woman's search for her family's past, something her parents have deliberately kept from her. Isolated in their British flat, her parents keep a kind of old-world mixed with fear outlook on life. Growing up in the 60's and 70's of such parents, the narrator naturally begins to explore her world in a way that horrifies her parents, even if much of it is kept secret from them. She gravitates towards her much disapp The Clothes on Their Backs , by Linda Grant is a story of a first generation American woman's search for her family's past, something her parents have deliberately kept from her.

She gravitates towards her much disapproved of uncle and learns of the country and family her father has come from but never speaks of. Given this premise, I expected what she discovers to be more sensational. Too, much of what she goes through is put forward as it is experienced--happening without much explanation or redemption.

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There is much in this book that is left unexplored--her parents are never forthcoming in emotion or explanation. She is forced to internalize things through her estranged uncle's eyes. As someone who likes to read meaning and metaphor into things, this book was less than satisfying. It has a very post-modern feel to it. Even the most repulsive revelations and occurrences are very matter-of-fact, and while the author attempts to close the circle, so to speak, it it not done successfully. View 1 comment. Jan 25, Josh Ang rated it it was ok. Built on a promising premise of showing us how clothes define our selves, this novel was also ambitious in its attempt to capture the history of a slum landlord in London through the eyes of his estranged niece.

Interspersed with thread narratives about slavery, the plight of East European refugees, discrimination and family ties, it also tries to deal with a displaced youth's sense of belonging and relations with her timid parents who are afraid to live life in her opinion. But perhaps it is Built on a promising premise of showing us how clothes define our selves, this novel was also ambitious in its attempt to capture the history of a slum landlord in London through the eyes of his estranged niece. But perhaps it is the breadth of issues that the novel tries to tackle that causes it to fall flat in the end.

They could not keep up with the characters the author was trying to paint, and for the most part, the characters just remained as characters on a printed page for me.

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The lackadaisical narrator failed to engage me in her problems. I remain unconvinced nor particularly moved by the narrator's changed impressions of her Uncle Sandor termed the 'new face of evil' by the press , her plight as a young widow, nor her callous dismissal of her parents, especially in her conversations with her mom. She sounded like a cruel, overgrown and bratty year-old teen in those exchanges. A disappointment, considering the accolades this book garnered, and being on a Man Booker Shortlist, no less. Aug 09, Stewart rated it liked it Shelves: united-kingdom , booker Her third novel, Still Here, flirted with the Booker back in , but never made it to the shortlist.

The Clothes On Their Backs | Book by Linda Grant | Official Publisher Page | Simon & Schuster

The Clothes On Their Backs , her fourth novel, might yet see her take one step further to the Booker, especially in a year where, judging by the discussions on the Booker site, the field seems average. And the Hungarian connection is here in force, with poet and translator Georges Szirtes appearing three times over: in the dedication, the acknowledgements, and an epigraph. Call it a three piece suit, which is fitting as The Clothes On Their Backs is a novel all about clothes and what it means to wear them.

Read my full review here. Feb 15, Suzanne rated it really liked it. The theme of clothing is ever present; Do the clothes make the man? Is the outward appearance of a person, or a life, a factor in who one really is? A powerful book , and definitely not standard Holocaust fare. There are times when one picks up a book, begins to read, and thinks, "I just can't seem to dig into this one. I remember this feeling when I started to read "Stones from the River" - difficult to get into, but I stuck with it, and it is one of my all-time favorites books.