WE HAD IT SO GOOD

Book ID/图书代码： 07980010B42932

English Summary/英文概要： In 1968 Stephen Newman arrives in England from California. Sent down from Oxford, he hurriedly marries his English girlfriend Andrea to avoid returning to America and the draft board. Over the next forty years they and their friends build lives of middle-class success until the events of late middle-age and the new century force them to realise that their fortunate generation has always lived in a fool’s paradise.

Chinese Summary/中文概要： 熬過了時代的巨變給予他的種種考驗，但這得來不易的幸福是否能永遠存在?

史蒂芬為了脫離貧窮，力爭上游
熬過了時代的巨變給予他的種種考驗，用血汗換來美夢成真
但這得來不易的幸福是否能永遠存在？

史蒂芬‧紐曼(Stephen Newman)，一個九歲的美國男孩，每天都在毛皮儲藏室裡製作他買不起的毛皮大衣。為了拉高自己和家人的社會階級，還有滿足自己對知識的渴求，他努力爭取得到全球學術界最高榮譽，以羅德獎學金得主(Rhodes scholar)的身分到英國牛津大學就讀。
當時美國正處於越戰期間，為了躲避徵召，他和英國女友安德莉亞(Andrea)倉卒完婚。接下來的40年，他們努力打拼，憑藉自身的努力致富，好不容易爬到中產階級的最上層，實現年輕時的夢想。
當他們漸漸老去，新的世紀到來，社會變化的腳步變得比以前快速許多，把他們遠遠拋在身後。這時他們才發現，自己之前活在一個非常幸運的時代，他們用血汗換來的成功其實都只是虛幻的幸福而已…。(Chris)

Awards/获奖情况：2010年曼布克獎得主霍華德‧雅格布森(Howard Jacobson)讚譽推薦！
琳達‧格蘭特(Linda Grant)用溫暖柔軟的筆觸
將1950年代到近期時代變遷的縮影，以本書個性鮮明的角色中來詮釋

版權已售:UK: Virago; US: Scribner; Portuguese: Civilizacao

Review
** ’A fascinating and poignant Chinese box of a novel, in which places and times hold each other’s secrets, nothing stays still, and even the most important moments appear transitory. Linda Grant uncovers the tragedy inherent in chronology itself, and thus demonstrates, as only a novelist can, the treacherous falsity of dreams and ideology. This is a work of great tenderness and regret’---Howard Jacobson, author of the Man Booker winner THE FINKLER QUESTION 霍華德‧雅格布森，《芬克勒的疑問》作者，2010年曼布克獎得主

Grant, whose The Clothes on Their Backs was shortlisted for the Man Booker, again focuses on American Rhodes scholar Stephen Newman over the years from 1950s England to near modern-day. Stephen, who lives in England with his British wife, is a hippie, a disappointed scientist who makes acid, and a successful, then obsolescent producer for the BBC. Told with a mixture of distance and intimacy, this novel assembles a sweeping history of both personal and cultural events: traumatic childhoods, late illnesses, Vietnam, 9/11. There’s a richness of character in not only Stephen, who’s rather unlikable, but in his magician son, antisocial daughter, analyst wife, even their friends. Grant has a talent for making emptiness meaningful in her characters-silences are induced by shame, the impossibility of communication and understanding, the literal deafness that overtakes Stephen’s son. Yet the novel ends feeling less epic and complex and more scattered and abrupt because the thread meant to hold it together-Stephen’s life-is one of its least compelling aspects. It’s a testament, then, that one finishes wishing Grant had given this family more room to breathe. (Apr.) ---From Publishers Weekly

"Grant really is gifted: her prose is accessible, vivid, upbeat, sensible and constantly thought-provoking. She pays attention to big issues (death, loss, love, genocide, terrorism, global warming), but never loses sight of the everyday details that define who we are…. This is a book about middle-class existence but it is also more than that—it shows how life, for most of us, just unfolds, inexorably, forming its own arc."---The Sunday Times (London) 《星期日泰晤士報》

“My only complaint? I fear I may not read a better book all year."---The Evening Standard (London) 《旗幟晚報》

“Grant approaches these questions with her usual insight and subtlety and comes close to creating the perfect novel: one that never stops working to fill the reader’s mind with good and difficult things, and which takes you to beautiful and often frightening places."---The Times (London) 《泰晤士報》

“[Grant’s] best novel so far…. it shows depth and feeling that both disturb and reassure.”---The Financial Times (London) 《金融時報》

About the Author/作者介绍： Linda Grant is a novelist and journalist. She won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2000 and the Lettre Ulysses Prize for Literary Reportage in 2006, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker in 2008 for THE CLOTHES ON THEIR BACKS.
琳達‧格蘭特(Linda Grant)是個記者兼小說家，她在2000年獲得柑橘文學獎(the Orange Prize for Fiction)，2006年獲得尤里西斯報導文學獎(the Lettre Ulysses Prize for Literary Reportage)，2008年以作品《The Clothes on Their Backs》入圍2008年曼布克獎(the Man Booker)初選。

Format:电子手稿

Rights Status/版权销售情况：Simplified Chinese/简体中文：AVAILABLE

Complex/Traditional Chinese/繁体中文：AVAILABLE

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