The Folks That Live On The Hill cover art

The Folks That Live On The Hill

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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Harry Caldecote is the most charming man you'll ever meet, a convivial academic who devotes his life to others. He is on call when his alcoholic niece falls into strange hands, when his brother threatens to emulate Wordsworth, when his son's lesbian lodger is beaten up by her girlfriend. He endures misplaced seductions, swindles and aggressive dogs just to keep the peace at the King's pub in Shepherd's Hill. But when the Adams' Institute of Cultural and Commercial History in America offers him the opportunity to do 'whatever he wanted to do' in a picturesque lakeside town, he faces a choice between freedom or responsibility - and whether to take charge of his own life.

© Kingsley Amis 2012 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

 Classics Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction

Critic reviews

Like Waugh he is a consummate writer of sentences, a mordant practitioner of perfected English prose ... Amis's gift for outrage is as alert as ever
Sometimes sharply funny, sometimes bluntly genial, altogether the most successful book he has written for years
All stars
Most relevant
... everyone sounds the same (like an aspect of Amis himself); and the themes are all rehashes (alcoholism, etc.). But the characters reverse, in fine style, expectations set up earlier. Have read it several times yet the DR performance brings out things I had not noticed before hearing it.

It takes a bit of getting used to ...

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