Think of England: A Novel

From the author of In the Gloaming and Fellowship Point, Alice Elliott Dark’s powerful and emotional debut novel traces one young woman’s reckoning with a childhood tragedy set during mid-1960s America and 1970s London.

Two cataclysmic events occur on February 9, 1964. The Beatles appear on The Ed Sullivan Show and later that night, nine-year-old Jane MacLeod's life changes forever. It has been said that children are good observers but poor interpreters and Jane's interpretation of the events of that evening shapes her life in ways she doesn't recognize.

Think of England follows Jane from an intense love affair in the ex-pat scene in punk-era London to working motherhood in New York to a family reunion in the country—and a reckoning with the ghost that has stood between her and her dreams of a happy family.

Alice Elliott Dark is the author the novels Fellowship Point and Think of England, as well as two collections of short stories, In the Gloaming and Naked to the Waist. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, The New York Times, Best American Short Stories, and O. Henry: Prize Stories, among others. Her award-winning story “In the Gloaming” was made into two films and was chosen for inclusion in Best American Stories of the Century. Dark is a past recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. She is an associate professor at Rutgers-Newark in the MFA program.

ISBN: 9780743234979
Format: Paperback
Pages: 272
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: May 06, 2003

The New Yorker Everything in this book is a pleasure to read.Los Angeles Times Alice Elliott Dark is the author of two acclaimed story collections, and her debut novel has the same finely observed, hushed ambience that makes her stories so seductive....The story of Jane MacLeod unfolds beautifully across Think of England's three panels, each one a perfect evocation of its time and place.Orlando Sentinel Dark's prose is controlled yet resonant, and the novel...draws its substance from her compassionate insight into character, its grace from her observance of small yet defining moments....Now when we think of England, we'll think of this fine book.