An Experiment in Love

A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year

It was the year after Chappaquiddick, and all spring Carmel McBain had watery dreams about the disaster. Now she, Karina, and Julianne were escaping the dreary English countryside for a London University hall of residence. Interspersing accounts of her current position as a university student with recollections of her childhood and an ever difficult relationship with her longtime schoolmate Karina, Carmel reflects on a generation of girls desiring the power of men, but fearful of abandoning what is expected and proper. When these bright but confused young women land in late 1960s London, they are confronted with a slew of new preoccupations--sex, politics, food, and fertility--and a pointless grotesque tragedy of their own.

Hilary Mantel's magnificent novel examines the pressures on women during the early days of contemporary feminism to excel--but not be too successful--in England's complex hierarchy of class and status.

鄉下女孩Camel有個望女成鳳的母親，達成母親期待順利進入倫敦大學的Camel在住校期間回想起親情、友情之間的種種過往，徬徨迷惑的她將如何自楚？是否能找到自己的價值與人生方向？反映1970年代的英國女性比過往擁有更多的機會和可能，卻無法拋棄傳統的處境。本書榮獲英國霍桑登文學獎 (Hawthornden Prize)。