Andrea Levy

Jeannette Baxter, Senior Lecturer in English Literature, Anglia Ruskin University, UK. She is the author of J. G. Ballard’s Surrealist Imagination, and her recent co-edited collections include J. G. Ballard: Visions and Revisions (2012) and A Literature of Restitution: Critical Essays on W. G. Sebald (2013).David James, Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Literature, Queen Mary, University of London, UK. Editor of several collections, including The Legacies of Modernism (2011), he is author of Contemporary British Fiction and the Artistry of Space (2008) and Modernist Futures (2012).

• ContributorsForeword by Lawrence ScottSeries Editors’ PrefaceAcknowledgementsChronology of Andrea Levy’s LifeINTRODUCTION ‘Towards Serious Work’Jeannette Baxter (Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge) and David James (Queen Mary University, London)CHAPTER ONE Unhappy BildungsromaneDave Gunning (University of Birmingham)CHAPTER TWO Council Housing and the Politics of the Welfare State in Never Far From Matthew Taunton (University of East Anglia)CHAPTER THREE Existing in More than One Plane of Time: Memory and Narrative Form in Every Light in the House Michael Perfect (University of Cambridge)CHAPTER FOUR The Immediacy of Small IslandDavid James (Queen Mary University, London)CHAPTER FIVE Small Island, Small Screen: Adapting Black British Rachel Carroll (University of Teeside)CHAPTER SIX Exquisite Corpse: Un/dressing History in Fruit of the Lemon/The Long SongJeannette Baxter (Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge)CHAPTER SEVEN ‘I am the narrator of this work’: Narrative Authority in Andrea Levy’s The Long Fiona Tolan (Liverpool John Moores University)CHAPTER EIGHT At the Centre of the Picture: Andrea Levy’s The Long Susan Alice Fischer (City University of New York)‘Andrea Levy in Conversation with Susan Alice Fischer’ReferencesIndex

A rich and judiciously edited collection offering (it’s hard to believe) the first book-length assessment of this major contemporary novelist. The chapters are beautifully balanced, exposing readers to a wide range of critical perspectives, from meticulous close readings of the novels to questions of literary form, reception, and adaptation. The collection concludes with a revealing, previously unpublished interview with Andrea Levy.