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Upstairs at the Party

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Upstairs at the Party

By: Linda Grant
Narrated by: Tricia Kelly
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About this listen

In the early '70s a glamorous couple known as Evie/Stevie appear out of nowhere on the isolated concrete campus of a new university. To a group of teenagers experimenting with radical ideas they seem blown back from the future, unsettling everything and uncovering covert desires. But the flamboyant self-expression hides deep anxieties. For Adele, with the most to conceal, Evie/Stevie become a lifelong obsession.

©2014 Linda Grant (P)2014 W F Howes Ltd Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction

Critic reviews

"'My only complaint? I fear I may not read a better book all year" ( Evening Standard )
"Ambitious . . . Like the best novels, it makes you examine your own moral compass alongside that of its characters" ( Observer)
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Linda Grant is a prolific and insightful author with real talent. Unlike some of her other audiobooks, this one is superbly narrated by someone who can do so many different moods and accents. I recommend this
highly and, since I started it, I’ve abandoned my TV!

A gripping listen!

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This is a novel about university life in the 1970s, seen from the perspective of today. For one of that era ( I went to a new university at the same time) it is richly evocative, capturing both time and place, but more importantly how the world appeared to us then. This makes the first third utterly brilliant. Adele, a tough Liverpudlian, who is caught up in the world without ever internalising its assumptions, makes a great narrator, particularly when she is describing the seventies as if she were in them. When she and the story graduates, it is never quite the same. That is the author's intention - both because something dramatic happened there ( as prefigured in the title) which changes the lives of Adele and her small circle, but also because, with the possible exception of Rose, life somehow could never live up the promise of world-changing freedom that the new universities held out. Both may be true, but after they leave the narrative flounders and the reflections from the present day become somewhat sour and occasionally cliched. She allows her characters to age more quickly, certainly than my contemporaries have. Her description of their return to the University in their late fifties, makes them all sound old and more than a little decrepit, and her view of the period is relentlessly bleak. I know it's a novel, and each of the characters is a singular individual, but the author is very clearly making a statement about an era. Her earlier novel, 'We had it so good', which starts earlier and maintains its narrative drive over several decades, is a more balanced and nuanced portrayal of both the joys and the follies of our baby-boomer generation. It certainly struck more of chord with me. Read them both and make up your own mind.

Flawed and uneven, but brilliant in parts

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Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

This is a great book, especially for us baby boomers who can relate to the story's protagonists. Yet it was ruined by the narration which was so utterly wrong. It wasn't the reader's voice per se; even if you hear a sample you won't get how irritating her voice is as it's mainly narration. When she voices dialogue, she manages to make all the characters sound like lumpen, dreary depressives. It's supposed to trace the fortunes of a group of bright albeit troubled students.

What did you like best about this story?

The story is well-written and evokes many memories of how things were in the Sixties. It's poignant and affecting. I just wish I'd read the book rather than listened to it.

How could the performance have been better?

The characterisation was totally distorted. Yes, I do remember some students affecting a slow, rather world-weary drawl when they spoke, as if they were permanently stoned which, in some cases they were. I never met anyone who sounded anything like this narrator's characters.

Could you see Upstairs at the Party being made into a movie or a TV series? Who would the stars be?

I could easily see this book turned into a TV series.

Any additional comments?

I really wonder who chooses the narrator. I can't believe that the author herself would have sanctioned this rendition of her book. Yet towards the end, the audio company boasts of producing stories read how the writers would have intended (or words to that effect). So I'm baffled. I've just read Linda Grant's earlier book, We Had It So Good, read by someone else. A completely different (superior) experience.

Warning: Listen to a sample before you buy.

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Adele spent her university years watching and learning, reading and discussing, partying and experimenting, discovering herself, attempting to escape the traumatic experiences of her teens, wanting to change the world and having plenty of fun doing it. She's liberated, strong-minded and part of a new social order, brimming with confidence and verve. But she becomes haunted by an event that took place upstairs at a party, and the jarring shock of that night never quite leaves her as she moves through the decades of career, motherhood and on into late middle age. Her reflections are as compelling as the account of her student days. Great story, with a wistfulness that avoids becoming maudlin, and well narrated.

Powerfully conveys the heady youth of the 70s

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well written and perceptive. captured the time period very well and evoked contemporary issues. recommend.

enjoyable read

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