Isa and May
  • Published: 1 April 2011
  • ISBN: 9780099542094
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $39.99

Isa and May

Formats & editions
EBook
1 Jul 2010
Paperback
1 Apr 2011
Buy from…
Amazon Booktopia Dymocks QBD Readings Your Bookstore Abbeys Boomerang Find local retailers Find local retailers Collins Fishpond Gleebooks Harry Hartog Kinokuniya Robinsons The Nile Mighty Ape

An engaging, intriguing novel which will appeal straight to Margaret Forster's heartland, about a young woman, her two very different grandmothers, Isa and May, and the secrets that families keep.

Isamay's unusual name comes from her two very different grandmothers, Isa and May, who were both present at her birth and who have both formed and influenced her whole life in very particular ways. Now almost thirty, Isamay is trying to write a thesis about grandmothers in history but is instead constantly ambushed by the startling secrets her own family has been keeping. When disturbing truths are revealed that force Isamay to examine her own certainties, will her grandmothers be able to build a bridge across the generations?
  • Published: 1 April 2011
  • ISBN: 9780099542094
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $39.99
Categories:

About the author

Margaret Forster

Born in Carlisle, Margaret Forster was the author of many successful and acclaimed novels, including Have the Men Had Enough?, Lady's Maid, Diary of an Ordinary Woman, Is There Anything You Want? , Keeping the World Away, Over and The Unknown Bridesmaid. She also wrote bestselling memoirs – Hidden Lives, Precious Lives and, most recently, My Life in Houses – and biographies. She was married to writer and journalist Hunter Davies and lived in London and the Lake District. She died in February 2016, just before her last novel, How to Measure a Cow, was published.

Also by Margaret Forster

Diary of an Ordinary Schoolgirl
How to Measure a Cow
My Life in Houses
The Unknown Bridesmaid
Shadow Baby
The Memory Box
Over
See all

Praise for Isa and May

Enjoyable and memorable

Sue Gaisford, Financial Times

[Forster] has written so brilliantly about female relationships...she can encapsulate a whole scene in a single sentence... [A] whole rich, fascinating novel

Kate Saunders, Literary Review

A deliciously observed, dilemma-and-drama-packed read

Helen Brown, Daily Mail

A sensitive and intelligent novel with passages of beautifully modulated pathos, while being in part, hugely funny

Matthew Dennison, The Times

A compelling story, sometimes funny, sometimes painfully sad... All family life is here, messy, insistent and, as the author convincingly shows, as essential as breathing

Penny Perrick, Sunday Times

Curious, compelling story

Sunday Telegraph

Margaret Forster has always had the enviable gift of making her characters spring to life, and both Isa and May do just that

Allan Massie, The Scotsman

Margaret Forster's professional skills and accomplishment are to the fore, as usual

Paul Bailey, Independent

A compelling portrait of family life

Big Issue North

Captivating... Like a beloved granny's visit, we're a little bit sorry to see the end approaching

Irish Times

In a classic Forster novel about class and generational upheaval, here the author writes tenderly about the influence of grandmothers and their desire, as Sand put it, to "stuff" their grandchildren "with happiness"

Emma Hagestadt, Independent

This rich novel, full of pathos, concerns the unbridgeable gaps between generations

Daily Telegraph
penguin pop image
penguin pop image