The Innocents, Francesca Segal
The Innocents, Francesca Segal
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The Innocents

Author: Francesca Segal

Narrator: Rosalyn Landor

Unabridged: 10 hr 9 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/05/2012

Synopsis

"It is impossible to resist this novel's wit, grace, and charm." --Lauren Groff, author of The Monsters of Templeton and Arcadia

A smart and slyly funny tale of love, temptation, confusion, and commitment; a triumphant and beautifully executed recasting of Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence.

Newly engaged and unthinkingly self-satisfied, twenty-eight-year-old Adam Newman is the prize catch of Temple Fortune, a small, tight-knit Jewish suburb of London. He has been dating Rachel Gilbert since they were both sixteen and now, to the relief and happiness of the entire Gilbert family, they are finally to marry. To Adam, Rachel embodies the highest values of Temple Fortune; she is innocent, conventional, and entirely secure in her community--a place in which everyone still knows the whereabouts of their nursery school classmates. Marrying Rachel will cement Adam's role in a warm, inclusive family he loves.

But as the vast machinery of the wedding gathers momentum, Adam feels the first faint touches of claustrophobia, and when Rachel's younger cousin Ellie Schneider moves home from New York, she unsettles Adam more than he'd care to admit. Ellie--beautiful, vulnerable, and fiercely independent--offers a liberation that he hadn't known existed: a freedom from the loving interference and frustrating parochialism of North West London. Adam finds himself questioning everything, suddenly torn between security and exhilaration, tradition and independence. What might he be missing by staying close to home?

About Francesca Segal

Francesca Segal is an award-winning British American writer. She is the author of a memoir, Mother Ship, and the novels The Awkward Age and The Innocents, the latter of which won the Costa Book Award for First Novel, the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction, and the Sami Rohr Prize, and was long-listed for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. She lives in London with her family. 

Reviews

Goodreads review by switterbug (Betsey) on February 01, 2014

This is an enjoyable and relatively conventional suburban drama of a close-knit Jewish community in NW London. Likewise, I applaud this debut author's unspoken but sublime irony and chutzpah in her choice to revitalize but change the original version of THE AGE OF INNOCENCE, a novel written by the c......more

Goodreads review by Elaine on April 01, 2017

This was a 2.5, but I'm giving it a first novelist .5 bump up. This had the same effect on me as Song of Achilles -- it just made me want to re-read the source material, Edith Wharton's brilliant Age of Innocence. The central problem with The Innocents is, in fact, its source material: the entire bo......more

Goodreads review by K on April 23, 2013

I never read The Age of Innocence, so I can't judge this as a retelling. But as a stand-alone book, it really didn't work for me. The basic story is that Adam, who has dated Rachel for 12 years and is finally engaged to her, suddenly falls passionately in love with Rachel's cousin Ellie, your classic......more

Goodreads review by Bonnie on November 14, 2015

Thank you to Hyperion Books for my early copy of The Innocents! 'The Innocents' is a story which delves into a man's pre-wedding fears and how he wavers between doing what he knows is right and what his heart is telling him. The story which is fashioned after Edith Wharton's 'The Age of Innocence' is......more

Goodreads review by Lydia on July 08, 2012

I've read so many good books in the last few weeks, and I like to think it's because I'm finally improving in my selections. The Innocents by Francesca Segal is another notch in that thought-process belt, because this is one story that packed a punch for me, subtle as it was. I hadn't heard of this t......more

Quotes

"It is impossible to resist this novel's wit, grace, and charm."—Lauren Groff, author of The Monsters of Templeton and Arcadia

"With understated wit, empathy and a cinematic eye of detail, Segal brings alive a host of characters so robust that you can easily imagine them onscreen... A winning debut novel."—People

"Inspired by The Age of Innocence, Segal's book is warmer, funnier, and paints a more dynamic and human portrait of a functional community that is a wonderful juxtaposition to Wharton's cold social strata."—Publishers Weekly, starred review

"A crafty homage... [Segal] writes with engaging warmth."—Entertainment Weekly, Grade: B+

"Readers who enjoy fast-paced, gently satirical literary novels, fans of Allegra Goodman, and book group participants will find a Shabbat dinner's worth of noshing in this accomplished debut novel."—Library Journal

"An emotionally and intellectually astute debut."—Kirkus

"[A] delightful first novel... wise, witty and observant."—The London Times

"Segal writes with an understated elegance."—The Observer (UK)

"The Innocents is written with wisdom and deliciously subtle wit... This is a wonderfully readable novel: elegant, accomplished, and romantic."—André Aciman, author of Out of Egypt, Call Me by Your Name, and Alibis

"A moving, funny, richly drawn story... Full of real pleasures and unexpected wisdom, this book sweeps you along."—Esther Freud, author of Love Falls and Lucky Break

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