Shocking, intimate, often uncomfortably honest, these stories reaffirm Doris Lessing’s unequalled ability to capture the truth of the human condition
In the title novel, two friends fall in love with each other's teenage sons, and these passions last for years, until the women end them, vowing a respectable old age. In Victoria and the Staveneys, a young woman gives birth to a child of mixed race and struggles with feelings of estrangement as her daughter gets drawn into a world of white privilege. The Reason for It traces the birth, faltering, and decline of an ancient culture, with enlightening modern resonances. A Love Child features a World War II soldier who believes he has fathered a love child during a fleeting wartime romance and cannot be convinced otherwise.
Winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature, Doris Lessing was one of the most celebrated and distinguished writers of our time, the recipient of a host of international awards, including the Somerset Maugham Award, the David Cohen Memorial Prize for British Literature, the James Tait Black Prize for best biography, Spain's Prince of Asturias Prize and Prix Catalunya, and the S. T. Dupont Golden PEN Award for a Lifetime's Distinguished Service to Literature.
Hometown:
London, England
Date of Birth:
October 22, 1919
Place of Birth:
Persia (now Iran)
What People are Saying About This
Michiko Kakutani
“A LOVE CHILD possesses both a palpable immediacy and a haunting afterlife.”
Reading Group Guide
Introduction
With four novellas in a single volume, Doris Lessing once again proves that she is unequalled in her ability to capture the truth of the human condition. In the title novella, two women, close friends from childhood, fall in love with each other's teenage sons, and these passions last for years. In Victoria and the Staveneys, a poor black girl finds herself pregnant by the son of a liberal middle-class family. Her daughter grows up, torn between the world of white privilege and that of her mother. The Reason for It, the third novella in the collection, will appeal to fans of Shikasta and Memoirs of a Survivor. It describes the birth, flourishing, and decline of a culture long, long ago, but with many modern echoes. In A Love Child, a soldier in World War II, during the dangerous voyage to India around the cape, falls in love on shore leave, and remains convinced that a love child resulted from the wartime romance.
Topics for Discussion
Did Roz and Lil do something wrong in loving each others' son?
Why is Victoria wary about Mary receiving the life she, herself, always wanted?
Does the final note by the archaeologist vindicate the narrator?
What is the significance of James' final thought?
About the Author Doris Lessing was born to British parents in Persia in 1919 and moved with her family to Southern Rhodesia when she was five years old. She went to England in 1949 and has lived there ever since. She is the author of more than thirty books -- novels, stories, reportage, poems, and plays. Doris Lessing lives in London.
