The Peppered Moth Author:Margaret Drabble In the early 1900s, Bessie Bawtry, a small child with big notions, lives in a South Yorkshire mining town in England. Precocious and refined in a land of little ambition and much mining grime, Bessie waits for the day she can escape the bleak, coarse existence her ancestors had seldom questioned. — Nearly a century later Bessie's granddaughter, F... more »aro Gaulden, is listening to a lecture on genetic inheritance. She has returned to the depressed little town in which Bessie grew up and wonders at the families who never left. Confronted with what would have been her life had her grandmother stayed, she finds herself faced with difficult questions. Is she really so different from the South Yorkshire locals? As she soon learns, the past has a way of reasserting itself-not unlike the peppered moth that was once thought to be nearing extinction but is now enjoying a sudden unexplained resurgence.
The Peppered Moth is a brilliant novel, full of irony, sadness, and humor.« less
Having returned to the depressing little town where her precocious and ambitious grandmother grew up, a granddaughter begins to wonder why some of us remain in the roles prescribed for us by family and tradition, while others are drawn to the prospect of different worlds.
Abounding with lively characters and subversive wit, this intriguing story explores timeless themes of genetic inheritance and the individual's place in history. With this brilliantly conceived novel full of irony, sadness, and humor, Margaret Drabble is at her storytelling best.