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Sign up todayThe Undertow
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Learn moreThis is the story of the Hasting family—their secrets, their loves and losses, dreams and heartbreaks—captured in a seamless series of individual moments that span the years between the first World War and the present. The novel opens in 1914 as William, a young factory worker, spends one last evening at home before his departure for the navy…His son Billy, grows into a champion cyclist and will ride into the D-Day landings on a military bicycle…His son in turn, Will, struggles with a debilitating handicap to become an Oxford professor in the 1960s…And finally, young Billie Hastings makes a life for herself as an artist in contemporary London. Just as the names echo down through the family, so too does the legacy of choices made, chances lost, and truths long buried.
Jo Baker was born in Lancashire and educated at Oxford University and Queen’s University, Belfast. She is the author of several novels published in the United Kingdom: Offcomer, The Mermaid’s Child, and The Telling. The Undertow was her first publication in the United States. She lives in Lancaster.
Anna Bentinck is a British actress who trained at Arts Educational Schools and has worked extensively for BBC Radio. Winner of four AudioFile Earphones Awards, she has provided voices for many audiobooks and such animated series as 64 Zoo Lane. Her film credits include Alice in Wonderland and To the Devil a Daughter.
Reviews
“Gripping and ruthless…The main characters are fully realized, with each personality becoming a force field and the language warping around them. Baker is skilled at evoking not only the distinctive social circumstances of the settings but the essential nature of each character…You can’t walk away from her book.”
“Engaging…The Hastings family must fend off adversity of all kinds and from every side. Their challenges—so movingly detailed here—provide a profound sense of the whole tumultuous century.”
“Has a quiet, cumulative power; you read it not quite realizing how it’s burrowing under your skin…Demonstrates a real mastery of language, from the way the book’s phrases subtly become more up-to-date as time passes, to the stream-of-consciousness [Baker] effortlessly slips into as the characters experience moments of great emotion or excitement…Moving but never sentimental.”
“Jo Baker is a novelist with a gift for intimate and atmospheric storytelling…[She] skillfully delineates the currents of social change and the essential human drama that persists…The result is an agile, keenly observed novel that evokes the minuscule rewards and disappointments of the everyday.”
“Immediate, poignant, and rarely predictable, this searchingly observant work captures a huge terrain of personal aspiration against a shifting historical and social background. Impressive.”
“We’re in love with the intricate, sensitive historical novel The Undertow.”
“Richly evocative…Places Baker at the top end of the list of emerging British literary talent.”
“Some writers let you know you’re in safe hands from the start, and Jo Baker is one of them. Stretching from the First World War to the present day, this drama-rich saga unfolds as a series of intimate family portraits…There are gripping set-pieces, from childbirth to battlefield, all related in cut-glass prose and embedded with telling period detail.”
“Deeply affecting…This is a sweeping drama with real emotional depth…The novel has cumulative force, the final chapters impressing most. Baker infuses her fluid, descriptive prose with a brilliantly generous squirt of smells [and sensations].”
“A poignant, emotionally intense read that illuminates the legacies of love and loss for ordinary people.”
“An emotionally involving story [whose] scenes ring true…Baker tackles Boy’s Own subjects—war, cycle racing, great escapes—with impressive confidence. Yet the book’s most moving moment is not amid the tragedy of war but in a quiet little scene between a teenage boy and his half-sister.”
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