LoveReading Says
Longlisted for the Orange Prize and well worth a read. A tale of blissed-out hippy 1960s Utopia turned on its head.
LoveReading
About Kith and Kin
'Stevie Davies's KITH & KIN is a moving, scalpel-sharp story of close family relationships...The writing is urgent and surprising, the tale at its most hilarious when it is bitter and bizarre...I couldn't put this book down until I had finished it' Patricia Duncker Mara and Frankie are cousins and best friends, growing up in the stifling atmosphere of Swansea in the 1950s, amid a bickering yet close-knit extended family.
Read the full description
Find This Book In
Kith and Kin Synopsis
'Stevie Davies's KITH & KIN is a moving, scalpel-sharp story of close family relationships...The writing is urgent and surprising, the tale at its most hilarious when it is bitter and bizarre...I couldn't put this book down until I had finished it' Patricia Duncker Mara and Frankie are cousins and best friends, growing up in the stifling atmosphere of Swansea in the 1950s, amid a bickering yet close-knit extended family.
But their passionate friendship comes under threat as they reach adolescence in the heady atmosphere of the Sixties - a decade in which the conventions of family and kinship are overturned. Years later, as Mara begins to confront the questions surrounding Frankie's death, she is drawn back into their secret past and the struggles of a generation betrayed by its own values.
About This Edition
Stevie Davies Press Reviews
'Davies has sown this brand of difficult love throughout KITH & KIN, leaving the reader breathless with its intensity.'
Emma Cowing, THE SCOTSMAN
‘A gleaming portrait of family rifts and rivalries…Davies greatest skill is in the depiction of childhood memories’
Stephanie Merritt, Observer
‘Startlingly dense and suggestive prose… deeply affecting and provocative’
Alex Clark, TES
'A moving, scalpel-sharp story of a close family relationship…I couldn't put this book down’
Patricia Duncker
‘Another gem from Stevie Davies - crafted, moving and minutely well observed'
A.L.Kennedy
'What's remarkable about KITH & KIN is Davies' sensual evocation of ... the bonds of blood and love. Beautifully unflinching.'
Daily Mail
About Stevie Davies
Stevie Davies is Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing at Swansea University. She has published widely in the fields of fiction, literary criticism, biography and popular history. Her work has been longlisted for the Booker and Orange Prizes and has won The Fawcett Society Prize and The Arts Council of Wales Book of the Year award. Her novel The Web of Belonging (1997) was adapted as a Channel 4 television film. Her novel The Element of Water (2001) was long-listed for the Booker and Orange Prizes and won the Arts Council of Wales Book of the Year in 2002. Stevie has three children who are the joy of her life. She is a cyclis and sea-swimmer.
Photo Copyright: Stevie Davies
More About Stevie Davies