PRECIOUS LIVES

A brilliant follow-up to HIDDEN LIVES, this account takes up the story of her gritty, northern father, Arthur. Margaret''s father was not a man to answer questions - least of all questions about life and death. So she attempts to answer them for herself, as she looks back at his life and indomitable character - from the perspective of his ninth decade - evoking incidents from her childhood, his working life and stubborn old age, trying to make sense of their largely unspoken relationship, and of his tenacious hold on life, and on his family. His life, and that of her sister-in-law, Marion, were ordinary, and apparently unremarkable, but when faced with death lives like these become strangely precious, Margaret Forster marvels at the tenacity of the human spirit, at its capacity to fight to the bitter end. PRECIOUS LIVES is her most personal book yet: an intimate, true and wonderful memoir about living and dying.