BOOK 149: BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE
MUSEUM: KATE ATKINSON
Behind the Scenes at the Museum is
the first novel of British novelist Kate Atkinson. The book
covers the experiences of Ruby Lennox, a girl from a middle-class English
family living in York.
The museum of the title is York Castle Museum,
which includes among its exhibits the facades of old houses from the city,
similar to the one in which Ruby's family lives.
By interspersing flashbacks with
the narrative of Ruby's own life, the book chronicles the lives of four
generations of women from Ruby's great-grandmother Alice to Ruby's mother's
failed dreams.
Ruby's own life is told in thirteen
chapters, written in the first person, documenting key periods in Ruby's life
from 1951 ("Conception" beginning with the words "I
exist!") to 1992. Between each chapter are (non-consecutive) flashbacks
that tell the story from the point of view of one of the other members of
Ruby's family—including her great-grandmother Alice, her grandmother Nell and
her mother Bunty.
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