Jonathan Coe

The Rain before it falls is extremely moving in its portrayal of the fleeting nature of love and happiness. But above all it's a compelling exploration of what goes to make a child : the legacies of character and history which are handed from one generation to the next.

The Rain Before it Falls

Francisca Rubio Wenk

Eleanor 

Martine Doppenberg

'What I want you to have, Imogen, above all, is a sense of your own history; a sense of where you come from, and of the forces that made you.' Rosamund lies dying in her remote Shropshire home. But before she does so, she has one last task- to put on tape not just her own story but the story of the young blind girl, her cousin's granddaughter, who turned up mysteriously at her party all those years ago. This is a story of generations, of the relationships within a family - and of what goes to make a child. Called 'the best English novelist of his generation' by Nick Hornby, Jonathan Coe extends his range in this magnificent account of a Shropshire family in the last half of the twentieth century. .