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Tenderness

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Tenderness

By: Alison MacLeod
Narrated by: Antonia Beamish, Bill Hope, Elliot Fitzpatrick, Sophie Aldred, Tim Treloar
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Bloomsbury presents Tenderness by Alison MacLeod, read by Antonia Beamish, Tim Treloar, Sophie Aldred, Bill Hope and Elliot Fitzpatrick.

The spellbinding story of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and the society that put it on trial; the story of a novel and its ripple effects across half a century, and about the transformative and triumphant power of fiction itself.

‘A hugely daring, intrigue-packed, decade-jumping doorstopper that teasingly blends fiction and actuality with wit and panache’ DAILY MAIL

‘A triumph ... it will conquer your heart' ELIF SHAFAK

'Glorious and arresting ... A widescreen novel' OBSERVER

'A passionate, epic joy' MADELINE MILLER

'Powerful, moving, brilliant ... An utterly captivating read' ELIZABETH GILBERT
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D. H. Lawrence is dying. Exiled in the Mediterranean, he dreams of the past. There are the years early in his marriage during the war, where his desperation drives him to commit a terrible betrayal. And there is a woman in an Italian courtyard, her chestnut hair red with summer.

Jacqueline and her husband have already been marked out for greatness. Passing through New York, she slips into a hearing where a book, not a man, is brought to trial.

A young woman and a young man meet amid the restricted section of a famous library, and make love.

Scattered and blown by the winds of history, their stories are bound together, and brought before the jury. On both sides of the Atlantic, society is asking, and continues to ask: is it obscenity – or is it tenderness?

'Gorgeously written and meticulously conceived' DAVID LEAVITT©2021 Alison MacLeod (P)2021 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC 20th Century Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Women's Fiction World War I Marriage War
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Critic reviews

Alison MacLeod has conjured a hugely daring, intrigue-packed, decade-jumping doorstopper that teasingly blends fiction and actuality with wit and panache
It’s an ambitious sprawl of a book, splendidly extreme in its magnitude, yet always elegant; a defence of complicated thinking and embodied life
What a triumph of skill and imagination is this powerful, moving, brilliant novel! I’ve never read anything quite like Tenderness, and I doubt I ever will again. This is more than a book about a book; this is a book about living - about really living, at the most dangerous and beautiful edges of the human experience. I stand in awe of Alison MacLeod. She is a novelist operating at the peak of her powers ... Tenderness is an utterly captivating read, and I came away from it with this astonished thought: There’s nothing this writer can’t do (ELIZABETH GILBERT)
Tenderness is a triumph and it will conquer your heart. Stunning, illuminating, but also, profoundly moving (ELIF SHAFAK)
A propulsive, addictive, joyous read (Barney Norris)
Weaving together fact and fiction with impressive skill ... Tenderness is a significant achievement, as life-affirming as Lawrence’s own fiction always aimed to be
Gripping new novel... shows a mastery of her craft… a thrilling read
Glorious and arresting ... A widescreen novel
A work of huge imagination
A compelling read … keen and elegant prose
With a powerful mixing of the personal and the political, of fact and fiction, Alison MacLeod’s latest novel is a sweeping and immersive literary treat
As sublimely crafted as a novel could ever be. I’m in awe of Alison MacLeod’s powers. Tenderness is an intricate, mesmerising tapestry of love and regret, prudery and desire, loneliness and togetherness, loyalty and betrayal, and the enigmas and conundrums involved in the art of committing these experiences to the page (ISABELLA TREE)
Gorgeously written and meticulously conceived, Alison MacLeod’s Tenderness presents history as it didn’t happen, and in so doing casts a new light on history as it did happen (DAVID LEAVITT)
Tenderness is a passionate, epic joy. It's a paean to artistic imagination and freedom, and also to the messy complexity of humanity. The characters leap from the page with astonishing life that is all the more impressive given their historical fame. MacLeod's prose is a masterclass - gripping, lyrical, witty, razor-sharp and filled with, yes, tenderness. I will never forget it (MADELINE MILLER)
Alison MacLeod has bored deep into significant cultural fault-lines of the twentieth century: D. H. Lawrence’s grappling with Edwardian England’s psychological timidity; America’s moment of political optimism with the Kennedys; the trial of Lady Chatterley’s Lover. She has disentangled connections - roots - between them and their participants, and emerged with a great sweeping symphony of a novel (TIM PEARS)
All stars
Most relevant
Great book intertwining many lives centred around DH Lawrence, cleverly done & beautifully written. It’s a long listen but if you enjoy a long novel, I most definitely recommend.

Intelligent!

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Who would have thought that intermingling the story of the trial of the Lady Chatterley’s Lover Penguin book with the history of its composition and the election of J. F Kennedy in America and the attempts of J Edgar Hoover to thwart his election could be so enthralling? But it is. Alison MacLeod has pulled off something unique. This is a very long listen but I found it utterly compelling and wonderfully read. If you wonder what the connections can possible be, listen on…

Clever, unique, beautifully read

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