Behind The Scenes At The Museum

Kate Atkinson's brilliant first novel, which won the Whitbread Prize against competition from Salman Rushdie and Roy Hattersley.

Ruby Lennox was conceived grudgingly by Bunty and born while her father, George, was in the Dog and Hare in Doncaster telling a woman in an emerald dress and a D-cup that he wasn't married. Bunty had never wanted to marry George, but here she was, stuck in a flat above the pet shop in an ancient street beneath York Minster, with sensible and sardonic Patrica aged five, greedy cross-patch Gillian who refused to be ignored, and Ruby... Ruby tells the story of The Family, from the day at the end of the nineteenth century when a travelling French photographer catches frail beautiful Alice and her children, like flowers in amber, to the startling, witty, and memorable events of Ruby's own life.

Author Profile

Kate Atkinson’s When Will There Be Good News? was voted winner of the Richard & Judy Best Read of the Year. After Case Histories and One Good Turn, it was her third novel to feature the former private detective Jackson Brodie, who also makes a welcome return in Started Early, Took My Dog. She won the Whitbread (now Costa) Book of the Year prize for her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, and has been a critically acclaimed international bestselling author ever since.

Reviews

A debut novel of astonishing confidence and skill…Acutely observant, overflowing with good jokes, it is the work of an author who loves her characters and sets them playing with gleeful energy’,'An astounding book…without doubt one of the finest novels I have read for years',‘Little short of a masterpiece…Fizzing with wit and energy, Kate Atkinson’s hilarious novel made me laugh and cry’,'A blinding debut from a Yorkshire mother-of-two who could be Alan Bennett's baby sister…straight-up simplicity veils the depth, poignancy and poetry of her story',A first novel written so fluently and wittily that I sailed through it as though blown by an exhilarating wind. I loved it,'Enchanting. It hops with sprightly omniscence from past to future and back again',A really gripping, emotionally satisfying family saga written with warmth and wit. I've re-read it countless times.