What the critics
wrote about
Behind the Scenes
at the Museum
‘A début novel of
astonishing confidence and skill . . . Acutely observant,
overflowing with good jokes, it is the work of an author who loves
her characters and sets them playing with gleeful
energy’
Spectator
‘Good grief, I can
hardly believe it – a first novel which actually made me laugh, a
first novel written so fluently and wittily that I sailed through
it as though blown by an exhilarating wind: a first novel with a
touch so light I only felt its truth and sadness after I’d finished
it’
Margaret
Forster
‘A many-layered
account of an ordinary family’s life, written with an extraordinary
passion . . . Atkinson’s prose is rich, satisfying and
self-assured, but never over-indulgent, and always surprising.
Packed with images of bewitching potency, this is an astounding
book’
The Times
‘Really comic,
really tragic, bracingly unsentimental . . . What a triumph! What a
joy!’
Boston Globe
‘Impressive and
entertaining . . . Quirky and colourful . . . Overall, it is
ambitious and assured, its whimsical nature cloaking a tragic, but
delicately rendered, revelation’
Yorkshire Post
‘Remarkable . . .
A multigenerational tale of a spectacularly dysfunctional Yorkshire
family and one of the funniest works of fiction to come out of
Britain in years’
New York Times
‘If you tot up the
deaths and other family tragedies in this feisty first novel, it
seems almost rude to find it so amusing and delightful . . . anyone
who thinks that all the sassy new writing by women is coming from
North America should check out this gem from
Yorkshire’
Independent on
Sunday
‘Beautifully
written . . . hers is an irrepressible voice, frank, funny and sad,
that will find echoes in all of us . . . Kate Atkinson maintains a
pleasing balance between the tragic, the comic and the
ridiculous’
Sunday Express
‘A remarkable
début novel . . . witty and original . . . this is the start of a
long, successful writing career’
Daily Mirror
‘The deceptively
naïve tone of Kate Atkinson’s first novel masks an unsettling
complexity of vision, its artless depiction of childhood concealing
acute feeling . . . the sense of the strain and the trivialities of
everyday family life is always vivid . . . precise and powerful
images penetrate the light, witty surface of the narrative,
suggesting the raw emotion beneath’
Times Literary Supplement
‘Has the best
qualities of traditional storytelling’
Penelope
Fitzgerald
‘Scoundrels,
malcontents, misfits, and cheats. Every family has them, though
seldom are they handled with the winsome wit and wisecrackery that
make Behind the Scenes at the
Museum such a smart and funny
read’
Washington Times