The Fifth Child, Doris Lessing
The Fifth Child, Doris Lessing
6 Rating(s)
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The Fifth Child

Author: Doris Lessing

Narrator: Sue Pitkin

Unabridged: 5 hr 15 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/07/2016

Categories: Fiction, Horror


Synopsis

Doris Lessing's contemporary gothic horror story—centered on the birth of a baby who seems less than human—probes society's unwillingness to recognize its own brutality.Harriet and David Lovatt, parents of four children, have created an idyll of domestic bliss in defiance of the social trends of late 1960s England. While around them crime and unrest surge, the Lovatts are certain that their old-fashioned contentment can protect them from the world outside—until the birth of their fifth baby. Gruesomely goblin-like in appearance, insatiably hungry, abnormally strong and violent, Ben has nothing innocent or infant-like about him. As he grows older and more terrifying, Harriet finds she cannot love him, David cannot bring himself to touch him, and their four older children are afraid of him. Understanding that he will never be accepted anywhere, Harriet and David are torn between their instincts as parents and their shocked reaction to this fierce and unlovable child whose existence shatters their belief in a benign world.

About Doris Lessing

Winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature, Doris Lessing was one of the most celebrated and distinguished writers of our time, the recipient of a host of international awards. She wrote more than thirty books—among them the novels Martha Quest, The Golden Notebook, and The Fifth Child. She died in 2013.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Stela on January 22, 2022

It was the summer of 2013 when a friend of mine, who is an English teacher, asked me how I would teach “The Fifth Child”. Since I knew nothing about the book nor had it, she sent me a PDF copy and here I am, after an unsettling but fascinating reading, asking myself the same question: what key of le......more

Goodreads review by Matteo on January 24, 2022

Videorecensione: [URL not allowed] Ogni scarrafone potrà essere bello a mamma sua, ma a volte ci sono delle conseguenze. Romanzo gelidissimo e di un'angoscia strisciante e tesissima. Davvero un gioiellino.......more