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    The Child's Child: A Novel
    The Child's Child: A Novel
    The Child's Child: A Novel
    Audiobook10 hours

    The Child's Child: A Novel

    Written by Barbara Vine

    Narrated by Sarah Coomes

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    When their grandmother dies, Grace and Andrew Easton inherit her sprawling, book-filled London home, Dinmont House. Rather than sell it, the adult siblings move in together, splitting the numerous bedrooms and studies. The arrangement is unusual, but ideal for the affectionate pair—until the day Andrew brings home a new boyfriend. A devilishly handsome novelist, James Derain resembles Cary Grant, but his strident comments about Grace’s doctoral thesis soon puncture the house’s idyllic atmosphere.

    When he and Andrew witness their friend’s murder outside a London nightclub, James begins to unravel, and what happens next will change the lives of everyone in the house. Just as turmoil sets in at Dinmont House, Grace escapes into reading a manuscript—a long-lost novel from 1951 called The Child’s Child—never published because of its frank depictions of an unwed mother and a homosexual relationship. The book is the story of two siblings born a few years after World War One. This brother and sister, John and Maud, mirror the present-day Andrew and Grace: a homosexual brother and a sister carrying an illegitimate child. Acts of violence and sex will reverberate through their stories.

    The Child’s Child is an enormously clever, brilliantly constructed novel-within-a-novel about family, betrayal, and disgrace. A master of psychological suspense, Ruth Rendell, in her newest work under the pseudonym Barbara Vine, takes us where violence and social taboos collide. She shows how society’s treatment of those it once considered undesirable has changed—and how sometimes it hasn’t.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateDec 4, 2012
    ISBN9781469276069
    Author

    Barbara Vine

    Ruth Rendell, writing here as Barbara Vine, has won three Edgar Awards, the highest accolade from Mystery Writers of America, as well as four Gold Daggers and a Diamond Dagger for outstanding contribution to the genre from England’s prestigious Crime Writers’ Association. Her remarkable career has spanned more than forty years, with more than sixty books published. A member of the House of Lords, she lives in London.

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    Reviews for The Child's Child

    3.5/5

    127 ratings15 reviews

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    • 3/5
      I am an enormous fan of Ruth Rendell, and have always especially enjoyed the suspense novels she writes under the name of Barbara Vine. My favorite is _Anna's Book_ (published as _Asta's Book_ in the UK), a brilliant story-within-a-story that weaves rich connections between the diary of the main character's grandmother and the narrator's contemporary life.Consequently, I approached this new novel eagerly, since it, too, integrates the manuscript of an unpublished novella ("The Child's Child") written by an ancestor into its present-day story. But that's where the similarities between the two books end. While the "Child's Child" novella at the novel's core is compelling, the present-day story really isn't. And the connections between the two, while potentially intriguing, aren't really mined very deeply. The present-day plot functions solely as a frame story for the "Child's Child." The novella starts out strongly, with Rendell's classic hints of menace and doom, but very little of this actually manifests itself. Maybe that's part of the point, that all the truly bad things that *could* have happened to the main character, Maud, never actually do...that the crimes she feels have been committed against her are nothing compared to all the additional mayhem that might have visited her over the years. But what, then, is the connection between Maud's story and that of Grace, our present-day narrator, other than the fact that Grace is equally clueless?There's also a lot of *telling* rather than showing throughout both parts of the novel. Huge emotions, entire relationships, and virtually all of WW II are related to us in brief exposition, not through dialogue or description, and what's especially odd is that the novella starts out with a lot of dialogue and description, rendered with Rendell's more characteristic deep psychological insight. But that approach seems to get abandoned at a certain point (after the character of John makes his exit), and the sketchiness and broad strokes come in. Maybe I'm missing something, maybe this is part of the "mystery"...but in general, I found this to be the weakest Rendell/Vine book I've ever read. If you're intrigued by the story-in-a-story structure premise, I urge you to go straight to _Anna's Book_ for a far, far better example of how brilliantly Rendell can pull disparate stories and historical moments together.
    • 4/5
      The Child’s Child, published in 2012, was the last novel Ruth Rendell wrote under the pseudonym Barbara Vine. After that, she would write only one Inspector Wexford novel and two standalones before her death at age 85 in 2015. One of the most interesting things about The Child’s Child is that it is presented as a “novel-within-a-novel,” a construction that readers only rarely encounter. The book opens in the present (2011) and transitions to a separate novel that begins in 1929 before finally returning to its original characters and plot. The 1929 novel, in fact, accounts for roughly two-thirds of the total length of The Child’s Child.The novel begins just after brother and sister Andrew and Grace Easton have inherited their grandmother’s large London home. Andrew and Grace surprise everyone when they decide to live together in the home rather than selling the valuable property and splitting the proceeds between them. They divide the house right down the middle, with one of them taking possession of the left side, the other the right side, while sharing the kitchen between them. And for a while everything goes well. Then, Andrew decides to move his boyfriend James, a handsome novelist, into his side of the house. The animosity between James and Grace is immediately obvious, but after the two men witness the brutal beating death of a friend of theirs outside a London nightclub and James becomes needy and fragile, the relationship between Grace and her brother’s boyfriend becomes closer…and closer. Now, not wanting to face her brother with the truth, Grace escapes into an unpublished manuscript from 1951 called The Child’s Child that she has promised to read as a favor to a friend. The novel, even though it was written by a respected author, has never been published because its sexual depictions were considered to be too frank for respectable 1950s readers. The book, a story about John and Maud, two siblings who find themselves in a situation somewhat similar to the one that Andrew and Grace are now in, is an easy one for Grace to lose herself in. She can only hope that her story doesn’t end like the one in The Child’s Child.Bottom Line: The unusual structure of The Child’s Child caught me my surprise, and at first, I was irritated at so drastically having to shift gears a third of the way into the book. But just a dozen or so pages into the “new” novel, I was intrigued by the plot and its similarity to what I had already read. In fact, I was even a little disappointed when that section of The Child’s Child ended and it was time to pick back up with the original characters and plot. Rendell does a remarkable job here, I think, of capturing the tone of an older novel trying to push the limits of what was acceptable at the time it was written, so the two plots, despite their similarities, are presented very differently.
    • 2/5
      I usually like Ruth Randall's writing but I didn't really care for this one and confess that i almost quit reading several times. It was more like reading a text book than a fiction novel. The Child's Child gets right to the very misery of life for an unmarried mother and her gay brother in the mid 20th century. To further confuse the plot the story starts in the 1930's and switches to more modern times with a brother and and a sister that fit the descriptions and mirror the antics of the earlier couple. Redemption in a minor form is presented at the end...but it's out of place and contrived. For me...the entire thing just didn't work.
    • 4/5
      Two fairly parallel stories, history repeating itself. Also a novel about how social conventions have changed over a century. For example our attitudes to homosexuality have changed, as they have to unmarried mothers. There is a suggestion made that the attitudes changed around the same time.The structure is a book within a book, a challenge for any author. We begin in the modern day and are then transported to a plot within the plot. In my opinion the "inner book", the manuscript that Grace is reading, is just a bit long, and almost turns into a family saga. But just in time we emerge back into the modern day.Is it crime fiction? Well yes, there is a murder: the culprit is brought to trial and executed. But, by the laws of the day, there are other crimes for which penalties are not applied.It wasn't my favourite Barbara Vine book, and I don't seem to have found it as fascinating as other reviewers but it is certainly clever.
    • 2/5
      There's much to admire here. The novel consists of strata of stories. In the centre the story of the child's child, bracketed by the frame story. Above that you have the author, Vine, with the reality of Rendell over all. And below it all you have the Bible with its stories. Lots of Biblical references.Unfortunately I could not give a damn about any of the characters and clever fictional mechanics are not enough to carry me through.
    • 3/5
      The Child’s Child is a complex psychological portrait of sibling relationships, young unmarried mothers and gay relationships across time, mixing up a thick stew of betrayal among family in the community. It illustrates that harrowing choices and consequences placed on those living outside society’s mores. There are both observant comparisons being made by the writer and to be drawn by the reader. A stronger balance between the novels would have made this a more satisfying read for me, but anyone interested in thought-provoking and suspenseful historical fiction mixed with a handful of literary musings will find much here to enjoy
    • 3/5
      This book is made up of two stories about illegitimate children, one that acts as a framing device for the other. The more modern story is about a woman who is finishing up a thesis about illegitimate children in literature while sharing a house with her brother and his lover. She soon takes actions that cause her to experience her topic first hand. The story within the story is called The Child's Child and is presented as a manuscript someone has passed along to the main character that contains a novel that was too controversial to be published at its initial writing. The Child's Child is about a fifteen year old girl who becomes pregnant in early 1900s England and who ends up having the maybe and living with her brother, who in turn is using her as a cover for his homosexuality.
      There was nothing bad or unlikeable about either of these stories but I also felt that there was nothing that made them feel especially worthy of my time. The framing story, which I found the more interesting of the two, suffered because it was given less time to develop. The Child's Child felt stilted, as if it was written in the style of a novel contemporary to that time, which kept me from being totally immersed. I think I would have appreciated these stories more if they were both shortened and included with a collection of other stories of women having children out of wedlock.
      Although this book did have its shortcomings, I would recommend it to someone who is interested in the social history of illegitimacy or homosexuality. The progress that has been made in the acceptance of both is demonstrated by the differences in attitude in the two different stories.
    • 2/5
      A new Barbara Vine! I put off reading this, held it back as a reward, since I knew it would be wonderful. But sadly, it wasn't. Two stories, with a book-within-a-book, that are sort of related (themes of siblings; homosexual men; unwed mothers) but without the twists and turns I expect from Vine. I mean, who didn't see that blackmail coming?? The inner story is interesting and kept me turning the pages to see what would happen next, but it's written in the same voice as the framing story. It doesn't feel like a different book and nor does it feel like a book from the fifties, as it purports to be.The framing story is kind of slight and doesn't have the emotional depth or the complex emotions that I associate with Vine/Rendell. The narrator tells us about her emotions but they don't feel real, nor do we understand much about the other characters. They seem to get angry just to move the story along. The end, and the motive of a character who shows up in the last pages, doesn't even make a lot of sense.
    • 2/5
      Why? I actually asked myself, "Why was this book written?" when I finished it. There's no question that Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine writes well, but why this plot with these characters?
    • 4/5
      I received this book as a Goodreads ARC giveaway. This was a great book and I really enjoy it
    • 4/5
      Great story within a story - but not really much suspense or mystery. BV just knows how to write.
    • 2/5
      A novel within a novel--sort of. Grace and Andrew's story comprises about one fourth of the book. The rest is devoted to the parallel tale of Maud and John in an unpublished book. The theme of intolerance towards gays and unwed mothers is important, but this book didn't really engage me. The characters were quite wooden, and not particularly sympathetic. And surprisingly, the writing (especially in Maud's story) was not what I've come to expect from Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine. Disappointing.
    • 3/5
      I am a long time super fan of Ruth Rendell, especially when she writes as Barbara Vine. I was so excited we were going to get another Barbara Vine novel because it's been a long time since we've had one, but this book was a disappointment. The biggest downfall for me was that I couldn't identify with any of the characters-both past and present. The book is set in two timeframes-present day and the late 19430's and early 1940's. The past part of the book is by far the biggest percentage of this novel, and it is brought out by an old unpublished novel that a present-day woman is asked to read. Grace is the name of the present-day character and she lives with her gay brother Andrew. Their two worlds collide when Andrew brings a new love interest home. As Grace tries to deal with the fallout from the introduction of James to her world, she begins to read an old unpublished manuscript that seems to be a mirror image of her and her brother's life. I think that Ms. Rendell's purpose with this book is to show that though we think our society's attitudes and political acceptances have changed in the last 60 or so years, they really haven't changed that much at all. We are still dealing with the same stigmas and moralality issues even this much later. But the book fell short for me in tension buildup and charactar identification. I just did not like any of these characters and really could have cared less what happened to them. So I am disappointed with this story.
    • 3/5
      This book has two parallel plots of unmarried pregnant women living with their gay brothers. In the contemporary story, Grace Easton becomes pregnant after a one-night stand with her brother’s lover. Understandably, tension arises between Grace and her brother, and she takes refuge in her thesis on the portrayal of unwed mothers and illegitimate children in English literature and in reading an unpublished novel. This novel, which begins in 1929, tells the story of a teacher, John Goodwin, and his struggles with homosexuality and his shielding of his sister Maud from the scorn of society when she becomes an unwed mother at the age of fifteen.I found the framing story, that of Grace Easton set in 2011, not to be as compelling as the story within that story. Grace just didn’t come alive for me the way that Maud does. Grace is a flat character whose outstanding trait is her self-centeredness; she gives little thought to how her actions will affect others. Maud is a fully developed character who arouses conflicting emotions in the reader. Sympathy is felt for her because of the callous way in which she is treated when she violates the social mores of her time, but that sympathy is replaced with contempt when she becomes a bitter woman whose treatment of her brother reflects the same self-righteous attitude which condemned her. The parallel stories, in their exploration of social mores and the consequences of violating them, show that society has come a long way in its acceptance of single parenthood and homosexuality, although prejudices still exist about the latter, so some enlightenment is still needed. The reader may find him/herself taking sides on a debate that is raised early in the novel. James, the father of Grace’s child, argues that, historically, homosexuals were more harshly mistreated than unmarried mothers: “’Sending men to prison for being gay was outrageous, an affront to their human rights. Your girls just got looked down on by a bunch of old women. . . . No girl went to jail for having a baby.’” Grace counters with, “’But they did. . . . Or the equivalent. They were sectioned and put in mental hospitals, called lunatic asylums then, for nothing more than having a child without being married. Some remained in them for years.’” James’s rebuttal is, “’You’re doing what women always do, claim an unfair share of the world’s ills. . . . Those girls . . . had only to put on a wedding ring and they’d be all right. Men were ostracized, attacked, killed . . . blackmailed, outlawed . . . in daily fear of discovery.’”This book may not be what a devoted reader of Barbara Vine/Ruth Rendell might expect. There are murders, but there is no real suspense. The culprits are known to the reader and it is only a matter of time before they meet their comeuppance. Nonetheless, the book is an enjoyable, quick read.
    • 4/5
      This book-within-a-book concept is relevant within the context of the plot, although the "inside book" is more interesting by far. The treatment of unwed mothers and gay men is difficult to read, and we can only hope that we have gone way beyond such harsh judgements in the 21st century. Maud is a fascinating character study as she descends into a self-absorbed, unlikeable mother/sister/daughter/friend. I thought the ending was rushed and implausible, which may be because I am fortunate enough to live in a different world.