As a young woman, Tess falls into activism and the influence of a charismatic environmental protester. She has never been happier. When he suddenly disappears, leaving her pregnant and alone, she is devastated. Gradually Tess rebuilds her life with her baby daughter Mia. Following the defeat of the Nazis in 1945, the idea took hold that Austria had been the first casualty of Hitler’s aggression when in 1938 it was incorporated into the Third Reich.’ The Great Fire of London sweeps through the streets and a heavily pregnant woman flees the flames. A few months later she gives birth to a child disfigured by a red birthmark. Funder reveals how O’Shaughnessy Blair self-effacingly supported Orwell intellectually, emotionally, medically and financially ... why didn’t Orwell do the same for his wife in her equally serious time of need?’

Trespass by Clare Clark | Goodreads Trespass by Clare Clark | Goodreads

Ugaz’s case is all too familiar in Peru, where powerful groups regularly use the courts to silence journalists by fabricating criminal allegations against them.’ There are a few problems with narrative focus: we hear too much about the engineer's stressed state, and we get more elaborately detailed paragraphs about the Thames effluvia than anyone really needs. Don't read it over breakfast, and you should be fine. The city of London is as much a protagonist as William and Tom, however. It is a city growing out of control with shamefully inadequate infrastructure - both physical and social - to support the basic functions and needs of its citizenry. In the end, the novel is really about the struggle of civilization to tame the basest and most corrupt elements of human nature - our literal and figurative excrement ... both the shit and the shits. I liked the main character Eliza, at last a heroine that doesn't devote her entire existence to finding a man to love her. although this was refreshing- I did feel slightly bereft of a happy ever after. I like loose ends to be tied up, so what happened after? and where did Petey go?!Long Arm Tom is a lonely old man who finds comfort in the company of an ugly dog. He makes his living collecting rats from the sewers and selling them to tavern owners like Frank Brassey who runs a rat pit for the Fancy in his parlor. William and Tom spend a fair amount of time in the sewers and eventually their paths cross. So I started skimming. And I kept skimming. (Oddly enough, the only overwhelmingly sexual scenes were in the opening.) They drove through a pine wood for a long time, then down a narrow lane with long grass like a mohawk in the middle that rustled against the belly of the car. Halfway down, where the lane turned sharply, her mum stopped the car. In the garden the ants were taking flight, clouds of them swirling upwards like ash from a bonfire. When Tess closed her eyes, the ants went on rising in the darkness, only now the swirls were silver.

Trespass by Clare Clark | Waterstones

This book is not for anyone who is at all squeamish about sewers and what goes on in sewers or anyone who has olfactory Synaesthesia that means they can smell something from its description.They just called from the hospital,’ Delphine said. ‘Sylvie died.’ Mia looked at Delphine, then at Tess. ‘Mum?’ Adding to my dissatisfaction, I felt that all too many of the resolving elements were "deus ex machina" in character - random and accidental. That the story has a more or less "happy ending" is unsatisfying, and I believe that it was Clark's intention that the resolution "taste of ashes". As with Monsters, Clark's tale plots the development of a person's humanity. In the case of William, a person who's lost his and must find a way to regain it or go mad. In the case of Tom, a person who knows there's a void in his life but doesn't know what it is or how to fill it. Ho visto molte recensioni in cui ci si lamenta della crudezza del romanzo. Devo dire che la cosa non mi ha turbato particolarmente, anzi! Anche se è vero che viene posto questo focus sulle funzioni corporali, e che queste sono molto grafiche: quanto defecano e urinano i personaggi, di che consistenza sono le feci ecc. Other problems with this book: unlikeable characters (the annoying heroine feels sorry enough for herself so we don't have to), overwrought descriptions, and a few more I might find if I ever bother to read the second half of the book (fat chance!)