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Upstairs at the Party
If you go back and look at your life there are certain scenes, acts, or maybe just incidents on which everything that follows seems to depend. If only you could narrate them, then you might be understood. I mean the part of yourself that you don't know how to explain.
In the early Seventies a glamorous and androgynous couple known collectively as Evie/Stevie appear out of nowhere on the isolated concrete campus of a new university. To a group of teenagers experimenting with radical ideas they seem blown back from the future, unsettling everything and uncovering covert desires. But the varnished patina of youth and flamboyant self-expression hides deep anxieties and hidden histories. For Adele, with the most to conceal, Evie/Stevie become a lifelong obsession, as she examines what happened on the night of her own twentieth birthday and her friends' complicity in their fate. A set of school exercise books might reveal everything, but they have been missing for nearly forty years.
From summers in Cornwall to London in the twenty-first century, long after they have disappeared, Evie/Stevie go on challenging everyone's ideas of what their lives should turn out to be.
In the early Seventies a glamorous and androgynous couple known collectively as Evie/Stevie appear out of nowhere on the isolated concrete campus of a new university. To a group of teenagers experimenting with radical ideas they seem blown back from the future, unsettling everything and uncovering covert desires. But the varnished patina of youth and flamboyant self-expression hides deep anxieties and hidden histories. For Adele, with the most to conceal, Evie/Stevie become a lifelong obsession, as she examines what happened on the night of her own twentieth birthday and her friends' complicity in their fate. A set of school exercise books might reveal everything, but they have been missing for nearly forty years.
From summers in Cornwall to London in the twenty-first century, long after they have disappeared, Evie/Stevie go on challenging everyone's ideas of what their lives should turn out to be.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2014
24 people are currently reading
1209 people want to read
About the author
Linda Grant
96 books212 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads' database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Linda Grant was born in Liverpool on 15 February 1951, the child of Russian and Polish Jewish immigrants. She was educated at the Belvedere School (GDST), read English at the University of York, completed an M.A. in English at MacMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario and did further post-graduate studies at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada, where she lived from 1977 to 1984.
In 1985 she returned to Britain and became a journalist. From 1995 to 2000 she was a feature writer for the Guardian, where between 1997 and 1998 she also had a weekly column in G2. She contributed regularly to the Weekend section on subjects including the background to the use of drug Ecstasy (for which she was shortlisted for the UK Press Gazette Feature Writer of the Year Award in 1996), body modification, racism against Romanies in the Czech Republic, her own journey to Jewish Poland and to her father's birthplace and during the Kosovo War, an examination of the background to Serb nationalism.
Linda Grant was born in Liverpool on 15 February 1951, the child of Russian and Polish Jewish immigrants. She was educated at the Belvedere School (GDST), read English at the University of York, completed an M.A. in English at MacMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario and did further post-graduate studies at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada, where she lived from 1977 to 1984.
In 1985 she returned to Britain and became a journalist. From 1995 to 2000 she was a feature writer for the Guardian, where between 1997 and 1998 she also had a weekly column in G2. She contributed regularly to the Weekend section on subjects including the background to the use of drug Ecstasy (for which she was shortlisted for the UK Press Gazette Feature Writer of the Year Award in 1996), body modification, racism against Romanies in the Czech Republic, her own journey to Jewish Poland and to her father's birthplace and during the Kosovo War, an examination of the background to Serb nationalism.
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November 21, 2014
Review originally published at Learn This Phrase, as part of a post about this and another of my favourite books of the year, Sarah Perry's After Me Comes the Flood.
I was interested in Upstairs at the Party from the moment I read the outline. In the early Seventies a glamorous and androgynous couple known collectively as Evie/Stevie appear out of nowhere on the isolated concrete campus of a new university... For Adele, with the most to conceal, Evie/Stevie become a lifelong obsession, as she examines what happened on the night of her own twentieth birthday and her friends' complicity in their fate. A set of school exercise books might reveal everything, but they have been missing for nearly forty years... This is an accurate description of the book, but only partially accurate, and for all that I found this blurb extremely intriguing, I could easily have been disappointed. (I imagined, for example, that it would explore gender politics in some detail, when in fact it only touches lightly on this subject.) Instead, after starting with the impression that this would be another tale of twisted relationships with an academic backdrop - a sub-genre I adore but also, generally, quite an easy set-up for a good writer to execute successfully - I found it becoming something else entirely, something much bigger and more impressive than I had originally expected.
Upstairs at the Party is, in fact, Adele Ginsberg's life story. It is a university book in one sense, but it goes far beyond that, confronting adulthood in a way few 'coming-of-age' novels do. Themes of identity, concealment, performance and artifice run throughout the story from Adele's childhood to her middle age: the androgynous image cultivated by Evie and Stevie is just one of perhaps a hundred examples. While, as the blurb hints, there is a mystery surrounding Evie, there is more lasting significance to the way Evie's constructed identity transcends her as an individual, and continues to impact on those who knew her for decades after its creation. The university the characters attend (never named in the narrative, but obviously York) is a strange mix of old and new, a combination that fits with their shared experience of coming of age in a stagnant era, after the hedonism of the Sixties but before the rise of punk. This disorientation seems to define the characters' generation, not only while they are students but for the rest of their lives, and perhaps this is why they are so keen to pretend, to experiment with their political affiliations, sexualities, and personas. We see them long after they have abandoned the idealism of youth; we discover the many things they go on to be - which doesn't always make for happy reading.
Like Siri Hustvedt, Grant is adept at portraying complicated, damaged female characters - women who may not necessarily be likeable but are raw, real, angry, honest - and demonstrating that emotional anguish and doubt are constants in life, not just a part of youth. Adele is a difficult character, and an unusual protagonist for a story of this type: while she is something of an outsider, so are almost all her friends, and she is certainly tougher than many of them, doggedly optimistic, with a hard, deliberately uncomprehending attitude towards depression. She also expresses some opinions about rape which I found genuinely shocking. Adele's faults, though, don't make her an unpleasant character. Rather, they make her truly authentic, as if a sympathetic biographer knew they had to include every detail of her personality in order to be accurate. In fact, one of the best things about this book is the painfully believable characterisation. As students, the characters may be pretentious and hedonistic, but they are very much aware that they are playing out roles, not behaving naturally; the author makes it clear that just beneath the surface is a great deal of self-consciousness, immaturity and uncertainty, and this carries through to their older incarnations, particularly with Adele.
In Upstairs at the Party, everything happens: a whole lifetime happens. It's an intelligent and broad-ranging story which touches on issues including feminism, religion, seventies left-wing politics, racism, gender, AIDS, adultery, motherhood, growing up, growing old, and trying to find out who you are, even if that 'finding out' is still going on when you've left your youth behind. Effortlessly evocative of every era and setting her narrative touches, and supernaturally adept at weaving the effects of history (personal and otherwise) into her characters' lives, Grant has written an absolute powerhouse of a book.
***
Original notes, with spoilers, here:
I was interested in Upstairs at the Party from the moment I read the outline. In the early Seventies a glamorous and androgynous couple known collectively as Evie/Stevie appear out of nowhere on the isolated concrete campus of a new university... For Adele, with the most to conceal, Evie/Stevie become a lifelong obsession, as she examines what happened on the night of her own twentieth birthday and her friends' complicity in their fate. A set of school exercise books might reveal everything, but they have been missing for nearly forty years... This is an accurate description of the book, but only partially accurate, and for all that I found this blurb extremely intriguing, I could easily have been disappointed. (I imagined, for example, that it would explore gender politics in some detail, when in fact it only touches lightly on this subject.) Instead, after starting with the impression that this would be another tale of twisted relationships with an academic backdrop - a sub-genre I adore but also, generally, quite an easy set-up for a good writer to execute successfully - I found it becoming something else entirely, something much bigger and more impressive than I had originally expected.
Upstairs at the Party is, in fact, Adele Ginsberg's life story. It is a university book in one sense, but it goes far beyond that, confronting adulthood in a way few 'coming-of-age' novels do. Themes of identity, concealment, performance and artifice run throughout the story from Adele's childhood to her middle age: the androgynous image cultivated by Evie and Stevie is just one of perhaps a hundred examples. While, as the blurb hints, there is a mystery surrounding Evie, there is more lasting significance to the way Evie's constructed identity transcends her as an individual, and continues to impact on those who knew her for decades after its creation. The university the characters attend (never named in the narrative, but obviously York) is a strange mix of old and new, a combination that fits with their shared experience of coming of age in a stagnant era, after the hedonism of the Sixties but before the rise of punk. This disorientation seems to define the characters' generation, not only while they are students but for the rest of their lives, and perhaps this is why they are so keen to pretend, to experiment with their political affiliations, sexualities, and personas. We see them long after they have abandoned the idealism of youth; we discover the many things they go on to be - which doesn't always make for happy reading.
Like Siri Hustvedt, Grant is adept at portraying complicated, damaged female characters - women who may not necessarily be likeable but are raw, real, angry, honest - and demonstrating that emotional anguish and doubt are constants in life, not just a part of youth. Adele is a difficult character, and an unusual protagonist for a story of this type: while she is something of an outsider, so are almost all her friends, and she is certainly tougher than many of them, doggedly optimistic, with a hard, deliberately uncomprehending attitude towards depression. She also expresses some opinions about rape which I found genuinely shocking. Adele's faults, though, don't make her an unpleasant character. Rather, they make her truly authentic, as if a sympathetic biographer knew they had to include every detail of her personality in order to be accurate. In fact, one of the best things about this book is the painfully believable characterisation. As students, the characters may be pretentious and hedonistic, but they are very much aware that they are playing out roles, not behaving naturally; the author makes it clear that just beneath the surface is a great deal of self-consciousness, immaturity and uncertainty, and this carries through to their older incarnations, particularly with Adele.
In Upstairs at the Party, everything happens: a whole lifetime happens. It's an intelligent and broad-ranging story which touches on issues including feminism, religion, seventies left-wing politics, racism, gender, AIDS, adultery, motherhood, growing up, growing old, and trying to find out who you are, even if that 'finding out' is still going on when you've left your youth behind. Effortlessly evocative of every era and setting her narrative touches, and supernaturally adept at weaving the effects of history (personal and otherwise) into her characters' lives, Grant has written an absolute powerhouse of a book.
***
Original notes, with spoilers, here:
January 22, 2020
Edit: I just noticed how underrated this book is. I wonder why that is.
(4.5) More than a simple university drama although the premise very much suggests it is. The blurb promises a mysterious androgynous couple and an a deed that happens on a birthday party and changes everything.
I'm wary of first person storytelling, but in this particular case it worked out well. Our protagonist, Adele guides us through her childhood, university years and beyond with vivid, dreamy words. We get introduced to her friend circle and I felt a lingering nostalgia of my own university years. The feeling of endless possibilities, of slowly becoming someone.
Adele doesn't leave us wondering what happened after the formative years. She introduces the harsh reality, showing the broken dreams and lives along the success stories, following up on each one of her friends. And even success comes in a different way than expected.
The perception of people, of that particular night changes over time. Behaviors idolized fall back into the category of mental illness and become finally understood, giving a sense of closure in the end perhaps.
I didn't like some major jumps in time, but they didn't make the story incoherent, I realize they added to the general mood of the story.
I'm sure the characters will stay with me for a long time.
Highly recommended!
(4.5) More than a simple university drama although the premise very much suggests it is. The blurb promises a mysterious androgynous couple and an a deed that happens on a birthday party and changes everything.
I'm wary of first person storytelling, but in this particular case it worked out well. Our protagonist, Adele guides us through her childhood, university years and beyond with vivid, dreamy words. We get introduced to her friend circle and I felt a lingering nostalgia of my own university years. The feeling of endless possibilities, of slowly becoming someone.
Adele doesn't leave us wondering what happened after the formative years. She introduces the harsh reality, showing the broken dreams and lives along the success stories, following up on each one of her friends. And even success comes in a different way than expected.
The perception of people, of that particular night changes over time. Behaviors idolized fall back into the category of mental illness and become finally understood, giving a sense of closure in the end perhaps.
I didn't like some major jumps in time, but they didn't make the story incoherent, I realize they added to the general mood of the story.
I'm sure the characters will stay with me for a long time.
Highly recommended!
September 30, 2014
It should have been good, but I didn't give a shit about anyone in this book. For a while I thought it was because I teach undergraduates and I know - much to my dismay - that they're not like this, and I'm sure that in the 70's they weren't like today's aspiring neo-liberal monsters, but even with their politics these characters felt vacant.
Dull.
Dull.
June 21, 2022
PopSugar Reading Challenge 2022: A book featuring a party
This is the life story of a woman whose coming of age was at a campus university in the 70s. A tragic event occurs at a party and the story follows the ripples and repercussions that spiral out from the event.
It did nothing for me whatsoever.
I'm not saying it was a bad book per se, but I found the characters singularly unappealing and didn't care what happened to any of them.
The book was mainly set in the browns and oranges of the 70s, so it couldn't claw back appeal in atmosphere or aesthetic.
Many people have enjoyed the book so I suspect this is a compatibility issue, but the truth is, I was bored stiff and every time my interest was piqued, the narrative zigzagged away or left me unsatisfied.
This is the life story of a woman whose coming of age was at a campus university in the 70s. A tragic event occurs at a party and the story follows the ripples and repercussions that spiral out from the event.
It did nothing for me whatsoever.
I'm not saying it was a bad book per se, but I found the characters singularly unappealing and didn't care what happened to any of them.
The book was mainly set in the browns and oranges of the 70s, so it couldn't claw back appeal in atmosphere or aesthetic.
Many people have enjoyed the book so I suspect this is a compatibility issue, but the truth is, I was bored stiff and every time my interest was piqued, the narrative zigzagged away or left me unsatisfied.
September 2, 2017
Ever since I was blown away by The Secret History aged 18, I've loved the "Weird things afoot on campus" genre. It's a great setting for a story because of the motley people a uni attracts, as well as the intense friendships and rivalries that can occur. I thought this one deserved a look because rather than the Oxbridge settings of most British stories, this one sounded far closer to my own alma mater.
The early chapters are promising - working class Jewish lass effectively swindles her way onto the course - and when we first arrive on campus, she's quickly adopted by Bobby, a gay Indian dandy. I liked him, and I liked the assorted types that populated the landscape. This was the uni experience as I remembered it, with nary a chinless wonder in sight.
Then Evie drifted into the story, and everything crumbled.
I shall say it now: I didn't care for Evie, and grew steadily less interested in her as time went by. If we were given any reason for the collective infatuation, it'd be forgivable, but as far as I could make out, everyone fancied her / was drawn to her because ... she was pretty and wore eccentric clothes? Adele develops a sort of crush on her, which might have redeemed it, but in yet another instance of what I'm starting to call the Twelfth Night Trope, she ended up in bed with her equally pallid brother George instead!
To make matters worse, Adele grew progressively more unlikeable, especially in her treatment of the "townie" Denise. Stevie ditches Evie for someone less demanding, which he has every right to do, but Adele holds it against Denise for the rest of her life, refusing to acknowledge she's a nicer (and certainly saner) person than Evie. I expect uni educated readers are supposed to look down on her for her class resentment, but frankly I cheered her on.
Don't come away thinking I hated this book. I didn't. The writing was good, the characterisation was spot on in many places, and the portrayal of uni life was brilliant. I simply wish Linda Grant had a more interesting story to tell, with more likeable protagonists.
The early chapters are promising - working class Jewish lass effectively swindles her way onto the course - and when we first arrive on campus, she's quickly adopted by Bobby, a gay Indian dandy. I liked him, and I liked the assorted types that populated the landscape. This was the uni experience as I remembered it, with nary a chinless wonder in sight.
Then Evie drifted into the story, and everything crumbled.
I shall say it now: I didn't care for Evie, and grew steadily less interested in her as time went by. If we were given any reason for the collective infatuation, it'd be forgivable, but as far as I could make out, everyone fancied her / was drawn to her because ... she was pretty and wore eccentric clothes? Adele develops a sort of crush on her, which might have redeemed it, but in yet another instance of what I'm starting to call the Twelfth Night Trope, she ended up in bed with her equally pallid brother George instead!
To make matters worse, Adele grew progressively more unlikeable, especially in her treatment of the "townie" Denise. Stevie ditches Evie for someone less demanding, which he has every right to do, but Adele holds it against Denise for the rest of her life, refusing to acknowledge she's a nicer (and certainly saner) person than Evie. I expect uni educated readers are supposed to look down on her for her class resentment, but frankly I cheered her on.
Don't come away thinking I hated this book. I didn't. The writing was good, the characterisation was spot on in many places, and the portrayal of uni life was brilliant. I simply wish Linda Grant had a more interesting story to tell, with more likeable protagonists.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 8, 2015
Lind Grant made her very vivid memories of her student days into a novel, well kind of. – Is it a novel? Yes it is, the book has a plot, and a story line, and asks some important moral questions. But I stubbornly read it as a personal memoir anyway, as it touched so many nerves with me. As the author states in her foreword: "The novel is inspired by a particular time in my own life, but the characters and the events are the product of my imagination."
Grant herself studied at York in the seventies and her book captures the atmosphere of the vast concrete buildings of the university compound far outside town quite brillantly. Her descriptions of the campus and of the oh so odd mixture of students in her student flat reminded me very much of my experiences as an exchange student at Leeds University in 1987. Her critique of the totally unguided kind of life students were allowed to lead then and the horrid consequences that could have had, was clear-eyed and valid. What became of the protagonists after they finished their exams or dropped out and real life caught up with them is well-observed and very touchingly depicted.
Grant's characters stand out clearly, they are absolutely convincingly drawn, I never felt for a moment that they were mere imaginations (see above...). I found their naivety tremendously touching and the whole book felt to me like a very tender hearted endeavour. Grant is asking "what made us into the people we are today?" and shows how some never had a chance to live their potential and how others sadly never even wanted to.
I underlined many sentences, as I love Grant's witty and afraid-of- nothing kind of style, and found chapter 31 to be especially perfectly written. In it the narrator inherits a house bequeathed to her by a flamboyant friend who died of AIDS (" Is anyone still alive who remembers him apart from me?") and is thinking about her (then) lonely life as a single and her mother's comments to it ("Put your war paint on, dear, than you can face the world").
The final chapters bring some of the student friends together on a short journey to their former alma mater to round things up narratively and to show them slowly but steadily advancing into old age now. Grant's supreme powers of observation make this excursion into a splendid tour de force (or maybe tour de farce?) too. I enjoyed the read/ride tremendously, and end with a quote from one of the final chapters of the book: "I have tried my best not to turn into my mother, though sometimes, when I am appplying my lipstick in the magnifying mirror, and the shade I've chosen has not been muted by a softer artificial light, I see her reflection. I see her and all her friends, those chatterboxes in their powdered glory, the spores of face powder faling from their chins on to wattled necks. And I paint it on, more and thicker, to imitate the red badge of courage."
Grant herself studied at York in the seventies and her book captures the atmosphere of the vast concrete buildings of the university compound far outside town quite brillantly. Her descriptions of the campus and of the oh so odd mixture of students in her student flat reminded me very much of my experiences as an exchange student at Leeds University in 1987. Her critique of the totally unguided kind of life students were allowed to lead then and the horrid consequences that could have had, was clear-eyed and valid. What became of the protagonists after they finished their exams or dropped out and real life caught up with them is well-observed and very touchingly depicted.
Grant's characters stand out clearly, they are absolutely convincingly drawn, I never felt for a moment that they were mere imaginations (see above...). I found their naivety tremendously touching and the whole book felt to me like a very tender hearted endeavour. Grant is asking "what made us into the people we are today?" and shows how some never had a chance to live their potential and how others sadly never even wanted to.
I underlined many sentences, as I love Grant's witty and afraid-of- nothing kind of style, and found chapter 31 to be especially perfectly written. In it the narrator inherits a house bequeathed to her by a flamboyant friend who died of AIDS (" Is anyone still alive who remembers him apart from me?") and is thinking about her (then) lonely life as a single and her mother's comments to it ("Put your war paint on, dear, than you can face the world").
The final chapters bring some of the student friends together on a short journey to their former alma mater to round things up narratively and to show them slowly but steadily advancing into old age now. Grant's supreme powers of observation make this excursion into a splendid tour de force (or maybe tour de farce?) too. I enjoyed the read/ride tremendously, and end with a quote from one of the final chapters of the book: "I have tried my best not to turn into my mother, though sometimes, when I am appplying my lipstick in the magnifying mirror, and the shade I've chosen has not been muted by a softer artificial light, I see her reflection. I see her and all her friends, those chatterboxes in their powdered glory, the spores of face powder faling from their chins on to wattled necks. And I paint it on, more and thicker, to imitate the red badge of courage."
September 18, 2014
I found this novel achingly poignant as Grant is around my late middle age (what a ghastly expression) and many of her memories are also resonant with mine. I too remember the women, my mother included sitting talking furiously whilst we played in the park and the talk ending abruptly as we came up to ask for a drink or a cuddle. It appeared to be women's talk and often involved operations and bleeding and wasting away, but as Grant observes most likely sex was discussed and impotence and rape as in those days when my mother was young none of this essential element of life was aired in the media or women's magazines you had to check it out with your peers and ironically as Grant observes these cohorts of women supported and enabled one another in a manner that was arguably more robust and sustainable than that of the feminist sisters coming after them. The novel is also about stories and how we invent and reinvent sometimes unwittingly, sometimes with calculated awareness the story of ourselves. A sociologically fascinating novel. with a big heart. Recommended.
January 24, 2025
'Upstairs at the Party' - is Linda Grant's 2014 novel.
It's a novel all about growing up in the North of England and going to a northern university in the 1970s. Such a premise in itself doesn't sound particularly inspiring or interesting and initially feels as this is already very well trodden and furrowed ground.
But Grant's novel is about much more than just that, it's a dark story concerning memory, loss, class, privilege, the damage that people cause and the damage that others suffer. As the title suggests, there is a party in the novel and there is something that happens at that party which is central to the narrative here. Indeed the story feels very much split into - life before and life after the party. The shadow cast by the party's events is a significant one which looms large in the subsequent lives of those who were there, in particular main protagonist Adele.
There's also interesting additional sections in this edition concerning whether the book was autobiographical - whilst the setting (a thinly disguised York University) may well be, the characters and storyline therein are most definitely not. As well as some suggested reading group questions posed for discussion.
Grant's story is an intriguing one spanning many years, but clearly the university years here are pivotal to everything else. It's also, in the very widest sense, somewhat of a 'whodunnit' - in as much as Grant spins a web of conflicting memories and uncertain truthes throughout.
'Upstairs at the Party' is a really good novel, it's so well written and paced and delivers far more than the story premise initially promises.
A central theme in 'Grant's' novel is memories, how they change and how we don't all remember the same events in the same way and sometimes don't even remember events at all.
This is a very satisfying novel which definitely delivers over and above initial expectations - recommended.
It's a novel all about growing up in the North of England and going to a northern university in the 1970s. Such a premise in itself doesn't sound particularly inspiring or interesting and initially feels as this is already very well trodden and furrowed ground.
But Grant's novel is about much more than just that, it's a dark story concerning memory, loss, class, privilege, the damage that people cause and the damage that others suffer. As the title suggests, there is a party in the novel and there is something that happens at that party which is central to the narrative here. Indeed the story feels very much split into - life before and life after the party. The shadow cast by the party's events is a significant one which looms large in the subsequent lives of those who were there, in particular main protagonist Adele.
There's also interesting additional sections in this edition concerning whether the book was autobiographical - whilst the setting (a thinly disguised York University) may well be, the characters and storyline therein are most definitely not. As well as some suggested reading group questions posed for discussion.
Grant's story is an intriguing one spanning many years, but clearly the university years here are pivotal to everything else. It's also, in the very widest sense, somewhat of a 'whodunnit' - in as much as Grant spins a web of conflicting memories and uncertain truthes throughout.
'Upstairs at the Party' is a really good novel, it's so well written and paced and delivers far more than the story premise initially promises.
A central theme in 'Grant's' novel is memories, how they change and how we don't all remember the same events in the same way and sometimes don't even remember events at all.
This is a very satisfying novel which definitely delivers over and above initial expectations - recommended.
February 2, 2019
What an incredible read. You know when someone says that they’re gripped by a book? I felt at times as if my insides were physically gripped. I wanted to know what was gong to happen to all these characters, even though all we were doing as readers was watching them grow up.
Set from early 1970s till now it follows a group of students meeting at university and how their lives unfolded after a tragedy on their midst. It is so beautifully told with such evocative detail I felt I was living along side them all.
Set from early 1970s till now it follows a group of students meeting at university and how their lives unfolded after a tragedy on their midst. It is so beautifully told with such evocative detail I felt I was living along side them all.
July 6, 2014
This perceptive and compelling novel follows the life of Adele Ginsberg, growing up in Liverpool in the 1960s, at university in the 1970s and on into adulthood. Bleak and often gloomy, this nostalgic examination of an era is both convincing and thought-provoking. It examines all the issues of the day, right up to the present, and as a piece of social history is perhaps even more successful than as a novel. Not that I didn’t enjoy it as a novel – I did – but it loses its way at times, and the characterisation is not always successful, sometimes descending to stereotypes. However, in spite of any reservations I might have, I actually think this is one of Linda Grant’s most successful books, presenting us as it does with such a persuasive and well-observed trajectory of one woman’s life, and although the earlier episodes are perhaps the better ones, nevertheless overall this is a book well worth reading, especially if, like me, the time period mirrors one’s own.
February 4, 2023
*Re-read in February 2023. Wow, isn't it interesting how our perspectives change over time?!! Whilst in 2019 this book seemingly blew me away, in 2023 I was left feeling underwhelmed and battered from posturing!
I found the characters pretentious and overly "done" and caricatured. The conversations felt false, pompous and mannered, even in adulthood once the characters had "grown up" and gone their separate ways.
I suppose I still maintain that Grant shows the fragility and precariousness of the transition into young adulthood, albeit in a formulaic manner.
Although readable and somewhat enjoyable, the story just didn't hold a wow factor for me second time around. Drop from a 5 to a 2.5 star rating.
I found the characters pretentious and overly "done" and caricatured. The conversations felt false, pompous and mannered, even in adulthood once the characters had "grown up" and gone their separate ways.
I suppose I still maintain that Grant shows the fragility and precariousness of the transition into young adulthood, albeit in a formulaic manner.
Although readable and somewhat enjoyable, the story just didn't hold a wow factor for me second time around. Drop from a 5 to a 2.5 star rating.
October 15, 2015
The author (one of my favourites)is Adele (the narrator)in a partly autobiographical novel about her time at a Yorkshire university in the early 1970's. A well written and fast moving story which has a tragedy at it's heart. Adele gradually comes to terms with her involvement in later life, and uncovers the secrets that were hidden in the past.
The book feels like we were one of Adele's set and it's hard to make up our minds if we really had wanted to be there. In fact, I didn't. But that is not to say that I wasn't swept along with their youthful discoveries. It's just my youth was so different.
The book feels like we were one of Adele's set and it's hard to make up our minds if we really had wanted to be there. In fact, I didn't. But that is not to say that I wasn't swept along with their youthful discoveries. It's just my youth was so different.
March 16, 2015
Linda Grant sets out to follow the story of Adele, her plain speaking confident protagonist. Her childhood, and through a clever conceit her university career allows the novel to open up to friends at university and their stories as well. Hence, the mysterious couple known as Evie/Stevie and a number of roommates and confidantes are also portrayed as is the central mystery that is established concerning the enigmatic Evie- a mystery in which many of the characters are or seem to be complicit. This is all set initially (in the uni scenes at least) in the 1960s and 1970s, a period that Grant confidently portrays with wonderful evocative and referenced writing and a real sense of time and place. Grant manages to fast forward through the post university careers of the carefully developed central grouping of characters whilst constantly referring to and returning to the mystery that is Evie- a mystery that Adele cannot let go. This all sounds somewhat cliched and in less assured hands could easily be lumpen and plodding. However, Grant seems to be at the top of her game enjoying both the telling of the story and the opportunities to create and describe the layered story of setting characters and events. Adele is both deliberately an eye for the reader as well as a character who almost refuses to play the game that Grant want s her to play. In some ways this novel also ticks the genre boxes to cover a possibly wide readership. Grants books isn't a campus novel but the extended riffs on university and campus life are both realistic and elegiac. Similarly, it isn't a state of the nation novel but there are enough references to then and now to provide a sort of prototype female "Our Friends in the North" type narrative. Grant manages the seventies retro scenes well as she does the time shifts and scene changes with minimum fuss. There is a poetic quality to her writing that works wonderfully well and her eye for detail and the telling line is spot on. Overall, this is a wonderful book that manages to hold the reader with the huge confidence of its writing and the distinctive literary voice that Grant manages so well. This is one party you have to be at.
November 28, 2015
I didn’t much enjoy The Clothes On Their Backs, but I absolutely loved this. Adele is a Scouser (a Liverpudlian) in the 1970s, a bit slippery, an outsider from a distinct Jewish milieu of brash women who survive their troubles by sheer determination and mutual support. Hating her job on the perfume counter at Lewis’s department store, she manages to talk her way into a thinly disguised York University. I listened to the audio version, which was from this point on, a delight of droll accents, from Wolverhampton to effete ‘Bobby’, to whom Adele acts as ‘fag hag’. The university’s experiment of throwing a melange of young people together from a variety of classes and regions is superbly depicted. I loved the whole whacky range of naïve radicals, who identify with different schisms of feminism, communism and gay politics, all trying to out-radical each other. It certainly rang true to my memories of the time and was, with hindsight, hilarious.
There is also a strange truth to Adele’s fascination with Evie, half of a Bowie-esque couple; somehow Grant conveys her characters’ ability to be both smart and incredibly naïve. But of course the true fascination lies in what happens to the bunch of posturing radicals once the real world is confronted after graduation. Following the characters up to the age of fifty-eight, we get a powerful sense of what happens to youthful ideals and how those ideals can limit opportunities. In the end, this is a sharp but essentially jaded view of a generation which ironically didn’t appreciate their own great good fortune.
There is also a strange truth to Adele’s fascination with Evie, half of a Bowie-esque couple; somehow Grant conveys her characters’ ability to be both smart and incredibly naïve. But of course the true fascination lies in what happens to the bunch of posturing radicals once the real world is confronted after graduation. Following the characters up to the age of fifty-eight, we get a powerful sense of what happens to youthful ideals and how those ideals can limit opportunities. In the end, this is a sharp but essentially jaded view of a generation which ironically didn’t appreciate their own great good fortune.
October 31, 2015
This is such a hard book to review without giving away spoilers so I won't go into much detail about the actual story. Set in the early 70s, our protagonist, Adele, sets off to a newly opened University on a full student grant and a cheeky lie, in the hopes of escaping a dismal and uneventful future in her sleepy, working class, northern town. At Uni, she settles in and makes friends, but soon becomes transfixed with the mysterious Evie who is like no-one she has ever met before.
Upstairs At The Party is a wonderfully written, wholly intelligent, coming-of-age story as Adele tells us her life story, focusing on the events that happened on her 20th birthday which will lead her to thinking about a certain mystery for decades to come. I'm quite obsessed with the 60s and 70s, so this book really intrigued me and I found myself yearning to have been born at the same time that Adele was so that I could have potentially experienced a completely different life at University. Set against a backdrop which saw huge changes in society and public attitudes, the rise of feminism, and all the politics that went along with it, would have been utterly fascinating. And of course, getting a Uni education for free would have been the icing on the cake!
Upstairs At The Party is a wonderfully written, wholly intelligent, coming-of-age story as Adele tells us her life story, focusing on the events that happened on her 20th birthday which will lead her to thinking about a certain mystery for decades to come. I'm quite obsessed with the 60s and 70s, so this book really intrigued me and I found myself yearning to have been born at the same time that Adele was so that I could have potentially experienced a completely different life at University. Set against a backdrop which saw huge changes in society and public attitudes, the rise of feminism, and all the politics that went along with it, would have been utterly fascinating. And of course, getting a Uni education for free would have been the icing on the cake!
December 2, 2014
A potentially promising literary campus novel ruined by a weak story and a far-fetched plot. Linda Grant's latest novel 'Upstairs at the Party' centers on coming of age in the 1970s in England and playing with radical ideas and creating utopias that both consoled and haunted an entire generation. The book undertakes to deal with bigger themes such as guilt, trauma, loss and ageing through a range of characters, each having a unique influence on them and a distinct outlook on life, yet all products of the same interesting times. The only fundamental strength of the book is its characterization and a description of the way different characters grow old and go through different phases of life; otherwise, a considerably weak plot renders it a fairly unsatisfying read. One keeps on looking forward to a rewarding moment throughout the book but it's a comedown it ends with. I wish Linda Grant had come up with something more engaging.
September 24, 2019
Adele Ginsberg grows up in Liverpool during the 1950s and '60s, goes to a modern university in the early '70s and graduates into a recession. This is the story of Adele and of several others she meets while a student, up to the near present day. It covers the passions, fashions, politics and economics of Britain in those years.
Adele's twentieth birthday party takes place about half way through the book and what happens during that night is pivotal to the story.
I am only a few years younger than the fictional Adele or the real Linda and I can remember discovering sex, politics, class awareness, social responsibility, changing gender roles, freedom and the illusion that we could change the world in the way Adele and her contemporaries did. Our ideas were not wrong, but the certainty and conviction we had then was naive and perhaps childish.
I would not have known how to deal with Evie either.
Adele's twentieth birthday party takes place about half way through the book and what happens during that night is pivotal to the story.
I am only a few years younger than the fictional Adele or the real Linda and I can remember discovering sex, politics, class awareness, social responsibility, changing gender roles, freedom and the illusion that we could change the world in the way Adele and her contemporaries did. Our ideas were not wrong, but the certainty and conviction we had then was naive and perhaps childish.
I would not have known how to deal with Evie either.
September 14, 2015
It took a while to get into, more due to my own life at the moment than anything else. It's well written and realistic. This is another one of those stories that take you back to a time and place you never experienced but somehow rings true and familiar. A tale of youth and university life, the ideals we all held dear and the invincibility of the time before we had to grow up and become adults... Or not. A tale of broken humans and broken hearts as well as the realisation that we're all part of something bigger and whole.
July 12, 2014
Linda Grant is a wonderful author, her books take me back to the 70s and evoke memories and feelings long forgotten. Upstairs at the party, doesn't disappoint. I read it over two days, each page filled me with the hopes and dreams of being a teenager in the 70s. Now it is finished, like a true master, each one of the characters stays with me like a long lost friend recently rediscovered
August 16, 2018
This is a British university/campus novel mixed with some murder mystery. Really liked this book at the start and thought I was going to really enjoy it. But the writing got very boring and the characterisation was completely lazy. It could have been so much better but after a few chapters it completely lost its momentum and I couldn’t stick around to see how it ended. DNFed after 210 pages.
March 12, 2017
This is the first book I have read by Linda Grant, and I shall certainly be back for more. Very witty and intelligent writing, with a firm grasp of recent social history which helps make this an entertaining and thought provoking read.
June 16, 2025
4.5 stars.
August 4, 2019
‘We Had It So Good’ was so good. It was my introduction to the writing of Linda Grant. It was a portrait of the lives of UK baby-boomers I read at the turn of the decade. The novel convinced me that I’d always be reading her through the following years. The next book she authored that I picked up, ‘Still There’, was, well, not so good. It was a struggle. I made it through, expecting to be rewarded in the end. I wasn’t. So, I was put off.
When I spotted, a few years later, ‘Upstairs at the Party’ in a remainder bin for a couple of bucks, I thought I’d give her another shot. It sat on my ‘to read’ shelf for a few more years after purchase. Then there came the glowing review for her latest, ‘A Stranger City’. It seemed my cup of tea, but before I shelled out thirty plus dollars, remembering I had been burnt before, so to speak, I decided to tackle ‘Upstairs at the Party’, just to make sure. And you can probably guess the outcome of this little tale. It was excellent, so off I went to my favourite bookshop, duly bought the new one and settled in. It made a promising start. It seemed it had an interesting array of characters with the action, initially, zeroing in on those with a link to an unidentified body fished out of the Thames. How could nobody in the whole metropolis of London not miss this young woman who threw herself, it is suspected, off a bridge? The copper investigating the fatal incident had no leads and is troubled by that; a documentary film maker, who just happened to be producing a series on missing persons, included her story. Then there’s the nurse who was in the vicinity; she going on to disappear, as well, for a short time. She featured in the documentary as well, bringing her a modicum of fame. Yep, it seemed all set up for an engrossing read.
But then the author does a right turn into the world of immigrants to her city. Then followed by an imaging of London in decay, just a short time down the track post-Brexit. It seems as though Boris hasn’t been too successful in extracting the UK from Europe. It’s not a future I’d want to be involved in. Finally we reunite with the original cast, but by then it was too late for me. It’s all tied together, but even so, again I really struggled to complete the novel. Reviewer Jake Arnott, writing in the Guardian, describes this homage to an ever-evolving city, as being ‘...fractured and uncertain...’ as the huge metropolis it portrays, although his is a favourable report. Too fractured and uncertain for me, I’m afraid.
On the other hand, ‘Upstairs at the Party’ was the real page-turner. I relished it and raced through to the conclusion. It, claims Ms Grant, is partly autobiographical – and proves that she is an author certainly worth reading, with this or ‘We Had It So Good’ obvious starting points. Both books observes our generation looking back. In this case its back to a twenty-first birthday party where, upstairs, away from the action, a terrible event occurred for one of the guests. This morphed into a happening that changed lives. I was rapt in this more, to my mind, cogent work as secrets of the past are unravelled to allow us to see how the fortunes of a golden, gifted group of people play out.
But the quandary now is this. When the next Linda Grant comes out, will I chance her again?
When I spotted, a few years later, ‘Upstairs at the Party’ in a remainder bin for a couple of bucks, I thought I’d give her another shot. It sat on my ‘to read’ shelf for a few more years after purchase. Then there came the glowing review for her latest, ‘A Stranger City’. It seemed my cup of tea, but before I shelled out thirty plus dollars, remembering I had been burnt before, so to speak, I decided to tackle ‘Upstairs at the Party’, just to make sure. And you can probably guess the outcome of this little tale. It was excellent, so off I went to my favourite bookshop, duly bought the new one and settled in. It made a promising start. It seemed it had an interesting array of characters with the action, initially, zeroing in on those with a link to an unidentified body fished out of the Thames. How could nobody in the whole metropolis of London not miss this young woman who threw herself, it is suspected, off a bridge? The copper investigating the fatal incident had no leads and is troubled by that; a documentary film maker, who just happened to be producing a series on missing persons, included her story. Then there’s the nurse who was in the vicinity; she going on to disappear, as well, for a short time. She featured in the documentary as well, bringing her a modicum of fame. Yep, it seemed all set up for an engrossing read.
But then the author does a right turn into the world of immigrants to her city. Then followed by an imaging of London in decay, just a short time down the track post-Brexit. It seems as though Boris hasn’t been too successful in extracting the UK from Europe. It’s not a future I’d want to be involved in. Finally we reunite with the original cast, but by then it was too late for me. It’s all tied together, but even so, again I really struggled to complete the novel. Reviewer Jake Arnott, writing in the Guardian, describes this homage to an ever-evolving city, as being ‘...fractured and uncertain...’ as the huge metropolis it portrays, although his is a favourable report. Too fractured and uncertain for me, I’m afraid.
On the other hand, ‘Upstairs at the Party’ was the real page-turner. I relished it and raced through to the conclusion. It, claims Ms Grant, is partly autobiographical – and proves that she is an author certainly worth reading, with this or ‘We Had It So Good’ obvious starting points. Both books observes our generation looking back. In this case its back to a twenty-first birthday party where, upstairs, away from the action, a terrible event occurred for one of the guests. This morphed into a happening that changed lives. I was rapt in this more, to my mind, cogent work as secrets of the past are unravelled to allow us to see how the fortunes of a golden, gifted group of people play out.
But the quandary now is this. When the next Linda Grant comes out, will I chance her again?
October 8, 2020
"A story was building and as with all stories, it was better in the telling than the living... I just thought I could make things happen in the way they should have panned out, with the loose ends tied up... Later, I learned to keep these loose ends open. This is how a story survives, lives on because the ending always needs supplying in the imagination of its audience."
'Upstairs at the Party' is the life story of Adele Ginsberg as she looks back, as a woman in her late 50s, to several defining moments of her life - from her father's suicide to importantly, friendships lost and found during university, which go onto haunt her and shape her.
I loved this book in parts, especially how it confronts the notion of 'freedom' in adulthood - how too much of it can be frightening - and the pressure to have a fixed belief system (social, political etc.) without which one might as well not have an identity.
Ultimately, the book was too ambitious, and tried to cover themes of feminism, politics, motherhood, sexuality, gender identity all the way from the 70s to the 21st century, often meandering into cringeworthy stereotypes especially regarding sexuality and gender. As for the protagonist... I usually adore unlikeable heroines, but Adele was difficult to get a grasp on - she seemed too apathetic, vacuous, and often left me wondering about her motivation.
Having said this, this novel is not entirely unrewarding. It's essentially Grant's writing that holds it all together.
'Upstairs at the Party' is the life story of Adele Ginsberg as she looks back, as a woman in her late 50s, to several defining moments of her life - from her father's suicide to importantly, friendships lost and found during university, which go onto haunt her and shape her.
I loved this book in parts, especially how it confronts the notion of 'freedom' in adulthood - how too much of it can be frightening - and the pressure to have a fixed belief system (social, political etc.) without which one might as well not have an identity.
Ultimately, the book was too ambitious, and tried to cover themes of feminism, politics, motherhood, sexuality, gender identity all the way from the 70s to the 21st century, often meandering into cringeworthy stereotypes especially regarding sexuality and gender. As for the protagonist... I usually adore unlikeable heroines, but Adele was difficult to get a grasp on - she seemed too apathetic, vacuous, and often left me wondering about her motivation.
Having said this, this novel is not entirely unrewarding. It's essentially Grant's writing that holds it all together.
April 17, 2025
The main narrator of this story is Adele who, on the back of poor A-level results, still manages to land a place at a new ground-breaking university in the early 1970's. Here, Adele forms relationships with several other teenagers as they experiment with radical ideas. But, at the forefront of Adele's university life, is the strange couple who become known as Stevie and Evie - Adele is strongly drawn to Evie, indeed she becomes obsessed with her, even after a tragic event at Adele's 21st birthday party.
Adele's life after the party is forever tainted and linked to the events of that night as she continues to question what really happened and who was to blame....
I have been meaning to read this book for quite some time but sadly didn't find it as gripping as I expected. Indeed, I had trouble concentrating on the storyline and often found myself drifting off and losing my place on the page, ending up re-reading sections quite often. I also couldn't make much sense of the two-page ending titled 'November 2013' and thought it was pretty irrelevant - although no doubt I am missing something but, by then, I didn't much care! - 6/10 for the good bits!
Adele's life after the party is forever tainted and linked to the events of that night as she continues to question what really happened and who was to blame....
I have been meaning to read this book for quite some time but sadly didn't find it as gripping as I expected. Indeed, I had trouble concentrating on the storyline and often found myself drifting off and losing my place on the page, ending up re-reading sections quite often. I also couldn't make much sense of the two-page ending titled 'November 2013' and thought it was pretty irrelevant - although no doubt I am missing something but, by then, I didn't much care! - 6/10 for the good bits!
December 21, 2022
Promising story on paper, but there wasn't enough time spent on the university years and too much on the search for some notebooks that I found it hard to care about.
It had echoes of We Had It So Good, the second Grant book I'd read, which was superb for the first half, set in the past, less so the half in the present. Sadly this one was like a full book of the latter.
Two underwhelming Linda Grants in a row, after two strong (one superb) to start. The next could be decisive.
It had echoes of We Had It So Good, the second Grant book I'd read, which was superb for the first half, set in the past, less so the half in the present. Sadly this one was like a full book of the latter.
Two underwhelming Linda Grants in a row, after two strong (one superb) to start. The next could be decisive.
August 26, 2014
The writing was great, but the storyline left me feeling a little let down, especially the ending, as nothing is really resolved. It's told from the point of view of Adele, who goes to a new, revolutionary university in the 1970s, and how the events she experiences there shape the rest of her life. However, Adele is a complex, and not particularly likeable character. She lies continually, is hard and somewhat judgemental, has no convictions, and forms attachments that seem a little bit random, given that she sometimes doesn't seem to particularly even like a character (e.g. Dora). Adele becomes mesmerised by a girl called Evie, one half of an enigmatic couple called Evie/Stevie, although Evie is not her real name. The title is derived from the fateful events at Adele's 20th birthday that then cast a shadow over the rest of her life. Adele forms a relationship with Evie's brother, but it's unclear whether she likes him for who he is, or simply his resemblance to Evie, and he urges her to solve the mystery behind what happened to Evie.
December 29, 2016
I found the first third of this rather plodding, even though it was set at York University in the early 1970s, the same time period that I was at university. Having been at LSE I definitely recognised the earnest lefty student politics, although York seems to have missed out on the Maoists who regularly entertained us. The climax of the story was pretty predictable.
I found the last two thirds of the book more interesting and better written, with a good build-up of tension towards the end. The trajectories the characters' lives took were believable. The end itself was a damp squib though, and the secondary female characters, especially Dora and Rose, were so formless that I kept getting them confused. Even Evie didn't seem fascinating enough to keep everyone obsessed forty years later.
I've been meaning to read Linda Grant for a while, as she sounds like the kind of author I would like. So I'm a bit disappointed by this. I might read something else of hers but I'm not in any rush.
I found the last two thirds of the book more interesting and better written, with a good build-up of tension towards the end. The trajectories the characters' lives took were believable. The end itself was a damp squib though, and the secondary female characters, especially Dora and Rose, were so formless that I kept getting them confused. Even Evie didn't seem fascinating enough to keep everyone obsessed forty years later.
I've been meaning to read Linda Grant for a while, as she sounds like the kind of author I would like. So I'm a bit disappointed by this. I might read something else of hers but I'm not in any rush.
July 28, 2017
Right, this was a solid three star read until the last 20 pages. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed reading this book on the train and it was a light read but it could've been so much better.
I liked the locations and I liked that it was set in York without mentioning it was York and at first I liked the characters but then everything was just meh.
I lost interest in the characters midway through and the character development was poor. An event happens in the middle which is the climax of the book but then it just seemed like no big deal until the end and it's like "oops better explain that" and even then that was unsatisfying.
In saying that, I would say still try this book because it is a fairly enjoyable read. I also liked the literature references. However it has so much potential to do more and walk through the ideas slower so I was left disappointed.
I liked the locations and I liked that it was set in York without mentioning it was York and at first I liked the characters but then everything was just meh.
I lost interest in the characters midway through and the character development was poor. An event happens in the middle which is the climax of the book but then it just seemed like no big deal until the end and it's like "oops better explain that" and even then that was unsatisfying.
In saying that, I would say still try this book because it is a fairly enjoyable read. I also liked the literature references. However it has so much potential to do more and walk through the ideas slower so I was left disappointed.
October 25, 2014
This has taken me over two months to read. Often I will read a book in a few days. The writing was good - clear and crisp, but I didn't care about any of the characters and felt the story was weak.
Adele liked Evie, but didn't bother searching for the school exercise books until Evie's brother suggested it half way through the book. And when she found them they didn't tell us (or Adele) anything we (and she) didn't know already. It felt like Grant wanted to give Adele a motivation, a way to drive the novel forward but Evie's death and the exercise books weren't strong enough for me.
I also had an issue with the reader - Tricia Kelly. A lot of the women's voices sounded the same; she put on a whiny nasal accent. And, er, spoke with a lot of saliva!
Adele liked Evie, but didn't bother searching for the school exercise books until Evie's brother suggested it half way through the book. And when she found them they didn't tell us (or Adele) anything we (and she) didn't know already. It felt like Grant wanted to give Adele a motivation, a way to drive the novel forward but Evie's death and the exercise books weren't strong enough for me.
I also had an issue with the reader - Tricia Kelly. A lot of the women's voices sounded the same; she put on a whiny nasal accent. And, er, spoke with a lot of saliva!
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