The Clothes on Their Backs
Meet The Immigrants
Find out more about the people who have chosen to make the United Kingdom their home – with and without official blessing in Meet The Immigrants.
Our book of the month for September 2009 is The Clothes On Their Backs by Linda Grant, introduced here by Stephanie Forward
To belong to a place, now that is really something. No Kovacs ever felt that before!
Ervin and Berta were Jewish immigrants to Britain in 1938, settling in Marylebone as ‘mice-people’ in a ‘condition of mouse-hood’. Their daughter, Vivien, was unaware that she had another relative until she was ten, when her mysterious uncle Sándor turned up and was summarily dismissed. Soon afterwards he was imprisoned, reviled by the press with a photo and the caption: ‘Is this the face of evil?'
In her twenties, Vivien became her uncle’s amanuensis, transcribing his memoirs, and her family’s history was gradually revealed. Sándor had made his money as a pimp and racketeering slum landlord. In the 1950s and 1960s it was difficult for Caribbean immigrants to find accommodation in London, so he targeted this market. Although perturbed, Vivien felt a degree of empathy:
'The various choices made by my uncle and my father: one to survive against all the odds, the other to exist in a half-life, required me to ask myself what I would have done in their place.'
Now in her fifties, Vivien reflects upon the family tensions; her relationship with Sándor’s tenant Claude; the rise of the National Front; loss, recovery, and further loss: 'I had wanted to live, and I had lived.'
Reviewers have noted the author’s references to clothes: some have felt that the details enrich the novel; others have expressed disappointment that the ‘overarching metaphor’ is not teased out further. Do share your views!
Content last updated: 01/09/2009
About our expert
Stephanie Forward is Senior Tutor in Open Studies in the Centre for Lifelong Learning at the University of Warwick, and is an Associate Lecturer with The Open University. Her publications include Dreams, Visions and Realities; Sex, Social Purity and Sarah Grand (with Ann Heilmann), and the CD script for Blenheim Palace: The Churchills and their Palace.
Stephanie has been involved in two significant OU/BBC projects: The Big Read (2003) and the television series The Romantics (2006). She also leads the Open2 bookclub.
