> Skip to content
Play sample
  • Published: 7 November 2019
  • ISBN: 9780241985427
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 304

Grandmothers




A beautifully observed, tender and elegiac new novel from the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Librarian

Grandmothers is the story of three very different women and their relationship with the younger generation: fiercely independent Nan, who leads a secret life as an award-winning poet when she is not teaching her grandson Billy how to lie; glamorous Blanche, deprived of the company of her beloved granddaughter Kitty by her hostile daughter-in-law, who finds solace in rebellious drinking and shoplifting; and shy, bookish Minna who in the safety of shepherd's hut shares with her surrogate granddaughter Rose her passion for reading. The outlook of all three women subtly alters when through their encounters with each other they discover that the past is always with us and that we go on learning and changing until the very end.

  • Published: 7 November 2019
  • ISBN: 9780241985427
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 304

Also by Salley Vickers

See all

Praise for Grandmothers

No one can dig down into the shrouded recesses of the human heart quite as forensically as Vickers

Sunday Times

Vickers writes of relationships with undaunted clarity

Adam Phillips

The Librarian will wring the heart of anyone who fell in love with books as a child. It is a hymn to the power of literature...delightful

The Times on 'The Librarian'

A nostalgic treat...involving and hopeful

Mail on Sunday on 'The Librarian'

A fond portrait of what it is to love a child, both yours and not... a tonic for the overlooked modern grandmother

Sunday Times

Vickers sees with a clear eye and writes with a light hand. She's a presence worth cherishing in the ranks of modern novelists

Philip Pullman