Out of This World

by Graham Swift

Book Overview

Out of This World interweaves the history of a blighted family with the tragic and ludicrous history of the twentieth century. Its alternating narrators are a father and daughter--each obsessed with the other and irrevocably estranged--surveying their losses and grievances on opposite sides of the Atlantic. "A moving, ingenious and often very funny tale that takes us deep into his characters' wounded, resilient hearts with breathtaking virtuosity...rich,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679740325
• ISBN13: 9780679740322
• Release Date: March 1993
• Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
• Length: 212 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Tragedy, and Reconciliation Spanning Three Generations.

When Harry Beech refers to his fiancee as "She's out of this world." he reveals a happy conclusion to a life wrought with the kind of unspoken trauma not often made public. Although growing up in and inheriting monetary affluence, he has strained relationships with both his father, a physically disabled WWI veteran, and his daughter, child of his deceased wife. Emerging from a labyrinth of personal crisis, in the backdrop of the 20th century, Harry Beech does manage to mend his life and find some degree of lasting happiness. This work is deeply moving in a way that causes one to reexamine the "constants" which ordinarily typify modern life.

A powerful, brutal history of a 20th Century family

Graham Swift is a proven master of the brooding British drama and he continues here with a history of a family spanning several decades, wars and generations. Swift plumbs the depths of parental guilt, photographers' responsibility and terrorism. You emerge from this book battered but feeling a bit more clear about life in general.