The Waterfall

by Margaret Drabble

Unhappy in their marriage, Jane and Malcolm Gray separate while she is on bed rest, pregnant with their second child; after giving birth, Jane falls into an affair with James, the husband of her cousin and close friend, Lucy, and embarks on a complicated exploration of motherhood, friendship, and her own sexuality.

  • Format: eBook
  • ISBN-13/ EAN: 9780544286474
  • ISBN-10: 0544286472
  • Pages: 240
  • Publication Date: 10/01/2013
  • Carton Quantity: 1
About the Book
About the Author
Reviews
  • About the Book
    Jane and Malcolm Gray’s marriage is characterized by sexual unhappiness and the growing apathy they both feel toward one another. When Jane is confined to bed rest while pregnant with their second child, Malcolm realizes he must escape, leaving Jane in the care of her dear friend and cousin, Lucy, and Lucy’s husband James. After Jane gives birth, Lucy and James alternate nights with her, and it is during this time alone together that Jane and James fall in love, beginning an affair as marked by guilt as joy. Through Jane’s struggle to reconcile her relationship with James with her friendship with Lucy, Margaret Drabble gives us an intimate look at a woman caught between the claims of sexual awakening, maternal love and friendship.
  • About the Author

    Margaret Drabble

    MARGARET DRABBLE is the author of The Sea Lady, The Seven Sisters, The Peppered Moth, and The Needle's Eye, among other novels. For her contributions to contemporary English literature, she was made a Dame of the British Empire in 2008.

  • Excerpts
  • Reviews
    Praise for Margaret Drabble:

    "Reading a Margaret Drabble novel has always been like cozying up with a cup of hot tea by a gas fire with a dull English winter rain misting the window, and contemplating the story of one's own life."
    —The New York Times

    "As meticulous as Jane Austen, and as deadly as Evelyn Waugh."
    —Los Angeles Times

    "The deft commingling of the sentimental and the matter-of-fact is characteristic of writer Margaret Drabble…Drabble is one of the most versatile and accomplished writers of her generation."
    —Joyce Carol Oates, The New Yorker

    "Reading Margaret Drabble's novels has become something of a rite of passage…Sharply observed, exquisitely companionable tales of women of a certain age and class, educated, egocentric, strong, unlucky in love."
    —Washington Post

    "    Drabble's fiction has achieved a panoramic vision of contemporary life."
    —Chicago Tribune

    "What distinguishes Drabble's fiction from the commonplace is that, like Doris Lessing's early work, it nails femaleness. Drabble's women bleed, some metaphorically, but not all."
    —San Francisco Chronicle

    "A superb novelist."
    —The Dallas Morning News
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