Behind the Scenes at the Museum

It takes a certain amount of pluck to be both a first person and an omniscient narrator.  Kate Atkinson’s novel Behind the Scenes at the Museum starts with Ruby Lennox describing the moment of her conception in 1950’s England. In the rest of book she moves both forward and backwards in time to describe not only her own story but that of her parents, grandparents, and extended family.   Her family is not privileged and many die prematurely either by accident or warfare.  But the wit and spunk expressed through the telling keeps the story engaging.   

Winner of the Whitbread Book of the Year for 1997. 

~EM, Reference Desk.