The Radiant Way - Hardcover

“Enormous in scope and profound in sympathy, it hits every note from exquisitely trivial detail to ludicrous daily comedy to numbing tragedy. Essential reading!”
–Margaret Atwood

“A provocative and hugely entertaining novel.”
– Globe and Mail

“A demanding, risk-taking and rewarding masterpiece.”
– Maclean’s

“Margaret Drabble is a writer of shining wit and splendid seriousness.”
–Alice Munro

“Drabble combines the humanity of Alice Munro and the intelligence of Margaret Atwood with her own crystalline wit.”
–Sheila Fischman

“ The Radiant Way, with its brave perceptivity and bite, stands as a modern Middlemarch, an ultimately inspiring achievement.”
– Vancouver Province

“A perceptive, contemporary novel.…Drabble has a dry wit and unflinching eye for the ridiculous.…”
– Kitchener-Waterloo Record

“Splendid.… The Radiant Way leaves us profoundly depressed by the ailing condition of England and yet exhilarated by Drabble’s considerable accomplishment in this richly conceived novel.”
– Hamilton Spectator

Set in London and in the north of England, beginning in 1979, this grand and sweeping tragicomedy tells the story of three women –psychiatrist Liz Headleand, art historian Esther Breuer, and social worker Alix Bowen. Strong, articulate, witty, and opinionated, they find their personal and professional lives changed by national political events, as they bravely undertake the adventures of middle age. Disconcerting things happen to them –divorce, unsuitable affairs, unemployment, family illnesses and deaths, and even a terrifyingly close brush with a murderer. As the stories of their lives, and the lives of the people around them, unfold in rich detail, Drabble constructs a dazzling, panoramic tale. Large in scope and ambition, The Radiant Way is a brilliant chronicle of modern life from one of the world's most accomplished novelists.