Turn Again Home B 英文原版

　　Gorton, Manchester. 1930. Greyhound racing at Belle Vue, the
buses going up and down Hyde Road, the siren of Peacock’s foundry
going off every night at six. This is Bessie and Sam Holloway’s
place, home for Nell and little brother Bobby and older step-child
Violet. Precious visits from Dad’s sister Benny, a Queen of the
music hall trailing clouds of glory and whisky, provide infrequent
brushes with glamour. ‘Alright for some,’ grunts Bessie. Nell grows
up to work in a factory and there, from the tailgate of a truck in
the yard, she first hears fellow factory worker Harry Caplin play
trombone break on the old jazz classic, Clarinet Marmalade. Harry’s
talent will take him far and introduce him to such jazz legends as
Louis Armstrong and Jack Teagarden; but not as far as poor feckless
Bobby, who finds himself fighting in the jungles of Malaya.
Spanning the twentieth century, this is a poignant story about a
brother and a sister and three generations of a northern
working-class family.

　　Carol Birch was born in 1951 in Manchester and went to Keele
University. For her first novel, LIFE IN THE PALACE, she won the
1988 David Higham Award for the Best First Novel of the Year. In
1991 she won the prestigious Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize with THE
FOG LINE.