Ruby Lennox is the narrator of this story. She takes us through her life, from the moment she is born to the death of her mother, Bunty. As she tells her own story, she also weaves in the lives of three generations of women in her family: her mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. Their stories are set against the backdrop of England during the two World Wars, while Ruby\u2019s siblings also play an important part in the narrative. The story moves back and forth through time, gradually piecing together the history of this middle-class British family. It is both touching and witty, with plenty of humour alongside the more difficult moments. As always, I really enjoy Atkinson\u2019s writing. Her observations are sharp and funny, and I laughed more than once while reading this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe past is what you leave behind in life, Ruby,\u2019 she says with the smile of a reincarnated lama. \u2018Nonsense, Patricia,\u2019 I tell her as I climb on board my train. \u2018The past\u2019s what you take with you.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ruby Lennox is the narrator of this story. She takes us through her life, from the moment she is born to the death of her mother, Bunty. As she tells her own story, she also weaves in the lives of three generations of women in her family: her mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. Their stories are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22684,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[291],"tags":[31,124,180],"class_list":["post-22673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books-2026","tag-family","tag-loss","tag-wit"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/annie-spratt-9O-OUC9ZbtE-unsplash-scaled-e1789141193575.jpg?fit=1920%2C2030&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22673"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22685,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22673\/revisions\/22685"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}