The Dark Flood Rises

Fran may be old but she’s not going without a fight. So she dyes her hair, enjoys every glass of red wine, drives restlessly around the country and lives in an insalubrious tower block that her loved ones disapprove of. And as each of them – her pampered ex Claude, old friend Jo, flamboyant son Christopher and earnest daughter Poppet – seeks happiness in their own way, what will the last reckoning be? Will they be waving or drowning when the end comes? By turns joyous and profound, darkly sardonic and moving, The Dark Flood Rises questions what makes a good life, and a good death.

Reviews of The Dark Flood Rises

Erudite, beautifully written, funny, tragic * Daily Mail * Darkly witty and exhilarating * The Times * Her distinctive narrative voice and soaring prose remain electrifying * Telegraph * With its echoes of Simone de Beauvoir and Samuel Beckett, this quiet meditation an old age seethes with apocalyptic intent … Brilliant * Guardian * Masterly, poignant and uplifting * Mail on Sunday * Drabble has pulled off a quietly revolutionary portrait of an age-group whose lives are just as urgent as anyone's but are rarely considered ***** * Sunday Telegraph * Ageing and dying in style … Margaret Drabble's sharply drawn characters look back on lives lived and forwards to achieving a good death * Observer * Uplifting … Profound … Unforgettable … At its heart is the enormous question, how do we know if we've had a good life? * Sunday Telegraph * Now 77 and on her 19th novel, Drabble is skillful at creating brilliantly drawn, three-dimensional characters in this thought-provoking and witty read * Sunday Post * Written with tremendous energy … Drabble has always been an observant chronicler of human life. Meditations on what makes a good death … are enthusiastically explored in a text that roves fluidly between past and present. Inquisitive and erudite * Literary Review *