Winner of the prestigious Whitbread Prize for best first novel and the JohnLlewellyn Rhys Prize for best writer under 35 this modern classic has sold100000 copi... » 

Winner of the prestigious Whitbread Prize for best first novel and the JohnLlewellyn Rhys Prize for best writer under 35 this modern classic has sold100000 copies in the United States. The novel chronicles the life of a brightand rebellious orphan who is adopted into an Evangelical household in the dourindustrial Midlands. Her insistence on listening to the truths of her own heartand mind makes for an unforgettable chronicle of an eccentric moving rite ofpassage into adulthood. «