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Title: Unexploded

Author: Alison MacLeod

Narrator: Antonia Beamish

Format: Unabridged

Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-17-13

Publisher: Whole Story Audiobooks

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 1 votes

Genres: Fiction, Historical

Publisher's Summary:

Brighton, May 1940. A time of tension and change. Geoffrey Beaumont becomes Superintendent of the enemy alien camp on the edge of town, his son Philip is gripped by the rumour that Hitler will make Brighton his English HQ, and his wife Evelyn meets Otto Gottlieb, a 'degenerate' German-Jewish painter imprisoned in the camp. As love collides with fear, the power of art with the forces of war, the lives of Evelyn, Otto, and Geoffrey are changed irrevocably.

Longlisted for The Man Booker Prize 2013

Critic Reviews:

"MacLeod's range - spanning the movingly real to the mysteriously surreal - is excitingly, imaginatively realised" (Metro)

"Alison MacLeod is a strikingly original voice. Her stories create intimate worlds and make the reader live in them with an intensity which is haunting, disturbing and above all beguiling" (Helen Dunmore)

Members Reviews:

The personal impact of war time on one English woman and her relationships

Unexploded was long-listed for the 2013 Booker Prize. It is set in Brighton during World War II when the English are expecting the Germans to invade at any time and so round up any German suspects. Evelyn is married to Geoffrey and has one son, Phillip. Social mores are changing and Lord Haw-Haw is on the BBC ridiculing Churchill. Into their lives come Otto an escapee from German cruelty only to be interred at the local camp for suspects, which Geoffrey oversights. Evelyn and Geoffrey's lives are irrevocably changed as a result. The book describes people's differing reactions to the pressures of war and the waiting for the expected invasion. A lovely touch in the book was Virginia Woolf making a cameo appearance before she commits suicide.

The title says it all as this is an unexpected story.

Beautiful, descriptive writing about the bombing of Brighton during an early part of WW 2. The author enables the reader to experience exactly how it felt to see the ripping apart of this basically beachside party town to prepare for a landing there. Into this mix is a prisoner of war camp which included people whom the Germans simply transferred to UK as undesirables or degenerates. This is a most unusual book as her background knowledge is impeccable and this is combined with great insight into people's behaviour, emotions and reactions. Not an easy read but well worth the effort.

Good read, suggested for Nova Scotians because it is ...

Although I found the writing a bit hard to follow at times, there were certain characters that made you laugh, cry, and really feel the pain of those times. Good read, suggested for Nova Scotians because it is a local author.

An exceptionally well written and powerful book

As a young boy I lived in Brighton and went to School there during the war. I found the descriptions in the book fascinating and they reminded me very much of what I saw at the time. I am however curious about the trams. We had trolleybuses but not trams. I would be interested to know what the author has to say about this. The story was powerful. There again I knew nothing about the camps on the Race Hill. Could the author supply me with some background information?

Unexploded

Alison MacLeod, within the next decade, shall make her mark as one of the best novelists in the English-speaking world.