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Talking to the Dead

3.48 of 5 stars 3.48 · rating details · 391 ratings · 59 reviews

Praised by critics on both sides of the Atlantic for its elegant and sensuous prose, "Talking to the Dead" tells the story of two sisters whose lives are bound by the hidden and surprising truth about the long-ago death of their infant brother.

Paperback, 304 pages

Published June 1st 1998 by Back Bay Books (first published 1996)

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Sep 13, 2012 Ant Harrison rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012

I’m not too sure how to construct a review of Helen Dunmore’s Talking to the Dead (1996), except to say that for a so-called ‘literary author’ (whatever that means) it was well-structured, with a forceful narrative that kept you turning the pages. Isabel and Nina are sisters, living an enmeshed life ever since the death of their baby brother, Colin, when he was a few months old. Now adults, the story describes the elaborate dance and rituals of their relationship immediately after the birth of I...more

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May 14, 2013 Mervi rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, english, mystery, uk

This novel was completely haunting. It wasn’t advertised as a horror story, but by the time the final twist was revealed, it became one of the most shocking novels in print, the more so because what happens could take place in almost any family.

The interest came for me in the gorgeous writing and in the author's ability to sustain a terrible tension, a sense of gathering doom, like a summer storm rolling in slowly, but with stunning force.

I enjoyed imagining Isabel through the eyes of the variou...more

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Nov 23, 2012 Ali rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Helen Dunmore is a prolific and award winning author, yet this is only the fourth of her novels I have read. I now think I really must make an effort to read the rest. This 1996 novel is an impressive family drama with a fascinating psychological slant.
Dunmore’s excellent writing, with its sultry descriptions of place, draws the reader into the Sussex countryside during a scorching summer, and the lives of a group of rather unlikeable characters. There is a kind of chilly sensuality too in the...more Helen Dunmore is a prolific and award winning author, yet this is only the fourth of her novels I have read. I now think I really must make an effort to read the rest. This 1996 novel is an impressive family drama with a fascinating psychological slant.
Dunmore’s excellent writing, with its sultry descriptions of place, draws the reader into the Sussex countryside during a scorching summer, and the lives of a group of rather unlikeable characters. There is a kind of chilly sensuality too in the affair that develops between two of the characters, their coldness perhaps heightened by the backdrop of a record breaking summer. Beware of reading this novel when hungry, there is an enormous amount of food too, the cooking, shopping planning and eating of food, there is a sensuality to this too, the greed of it going hand in hand with the illicit sex.
“Richard hasn’t moved, except to take off his shoes and socks. He lies back with his feet in the sun, eyes shut. His feet are pale, naked-looking, city feet.

‘Here you are’
We dig into the crust, the cream, the fruit. The edges of the pie cream are just beginning, to swim in the heat already. I’ve always liked eating with Richard, because he is greedy, as I am. You can always tell. He leaves the plumpest gooseberry until last, to duck it in its own pond of cream. The sugar grits pleasantly on my teeth.”

‘Talking to the Dead’ is the story of sisters Isabel and Nina. Isabel lives in Sussex with her husband Richard in a house rented in her own name, where her friends – like Edward- come to stay for days and weeks at a time. When Isabel gives birth to her first child Antony – there are severe complications, and Richard asks her sister Nina to leave London to help the young nanny Susan, look after Isabel. Nina, a photographer and artist is devoted to her sister and is happy to spend time with her and the baby. Soon after arriving at her sister’s house Nina embarks on an affair with Richard, as already psychologically fragile Isabel’s behaviour gradually starts to cause concern. Cloistered away with her bitchy friend Edward for hours at a time, Isabel seems reluctant to leave the house, not even going into her beloved garden with which she had formerly been almost obsessed. Shut up in her sister’s house and garden during a ferociously hot summer, Nina begins to feel the strain of caring for her delicate sister and tiny baby, reminding her of a time she would rather forget.

“I am sick of it all. Milk and blood and babies. I lug another bucket down the path, the dark water shivering inside it. Water slops over my bare feet and raises scent from the dust. These trees should never have been planted in a drought. I heft the bucket and walk on, all my skin prickling with attention. I’m waiting. I leave the full bucket standing by the trees and wander on through the gloom, down to the raspberry canes. There are big moths flying. When they land patches of white show up on their wings so they look like jigsaws. Daytime life closes down, and night life begins with its own excitement. I wish I was in the city now, where day and night brush each other for hours. I wish I was in a taxi, hurtling round the corners of parks as they turn from blue to black with dusk.”

For Isabel and Nina share a tragic past, from the time when they lived in St. Ives as children. The secrets of this past gradually begin to reveal themselves through the memories of the sisters. This is a fantastically readable novel, the characters are not very likeable, but I never think that matters, indeed it can make a novel all the more interesting. Just when the reader may think they have it all tapped, Dunmore gently twists the knife – great stuff.
(less)

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Feb 02, 2011 Christie rated it 3 of 5 stars

The events of Helen Dunmore’s beautifully written novel Talking to the Dead take place during a blazing summer on the Cornwall coast. Nina has come to spend time with her sister, Isabelle, who has just given birth to Antony. It is a difficult labour and delivery and Isabelle is having a slow recovery.

"You don’t look very alike, Susan said yesterday. I wouldn’t have guessed you were sisters" (29).

Susan has been hired to care for Antony while Isabelle recovers from the complications of Antony’s bi...more

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Mar 08, 2010 Amy Meyer rated it 4 of 5 stars

Helen Dunmore has written a riveting story about two sisters and the ties that bond them as well as drive them apart. Isabel and Nina were very close growing up, maybe too close. They know each other better than they know themselves. A painful tragedy in their childhood caused both of them, but especially Nina, to push the past away, choosing to forget much of it. But the difficult delivery and birth of Isabel's first child and the memories that come back to Nina while she is staying under Isabe...more

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Jan 07, 2013 Stephanie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: literary

This review originally appeared at www.readinasinglesitting.com

"We hover on the edge of what used to be said, caught up, as we used to be caught in the histories we made up for Rosina and Mandy. They were always changing. That was the best thing about the dolls. If the storyline didn't work out, we could always erase their pasts..."

Increasingly as a reader I'm drawn to unreliable narrators and ambiguous narratives: perhaps it's a sort of literary knee-jerk response to the tidily spelled out, wra...more This review originally appeared at www.readinasinglesitting.com

"We hover on the edge of what used to be said, caught up, as we used to be caught in the histories we made up for Rosina and Mandy. They were always changing. That was the best thing about the dolls. If the storyline didn't work out, we could always erase their pasts..."

Increasingly as a reader I'm drawn to unreliable narrators and ambiguous narratives: perhaps it's a sort of literary knee-jerk response to the tidily spelled out, wrapped up, reading-group-questions-at-the-end books that seem to be in vogue. I'm a reader who likes to have a hand in my own reading experiences, constructing characters in my mind, piecing together various scenes and elements and braiding a sense of meaning from what is not said as much as what is said. That might be why spoilers don't bother me at all. A good book should be so much more than its final chapter, and so often, a book can be made even better without that big reveal.

Helen Dunmore's Talking to the Dead puts the onus on the reader to construct a truth of their own, and there are many possibilities at work here, each of which is plausible, and each of which is devastating.

From the book's outset, when freelance photographer Nina has gone to stay with her older sister Isabel, who has recently given birth, we have a sense of creeping disquiet. There's something slightly odd about Nina's venturing out into rural Wales for an extended stay given the circumstances: why is her presence needed when Isabel has hired a nanny and Isabel's partner is a constant fixture? Why, when the sisters seem to be entirely divergent in their personalities, and seem painfully lost when in each other's company?

Set during an uncharacteristic heatwave in rural Wales, the novel all but pulsates with a humidity of both setting and morality: it's rich and cloying, and distinctly unsettling. Isabel is strange and withdrawn, her unearthly beauty an ailing foil for her odd behaviour, such as her disordered eating and her worsening agoraphobia, both of which she hides through careful planning and excuses. Her relationship with her son, too, seems stilted and distant; it's his nanny who seems to be taking on the mother role, not Isabel. But as Nina's interactions with both her sister and nephew begin to send her searching through her own childhood memories, we begin to see what might be behind the eerie dynamics at work here: the childhood death of the sisters' infant brother.

The circumstances about this long-ago death seem to shift and cant as we learn more about Nina and Isobel, and as the book progresses we wonder whether we're dealing with an accident or something more. And of course, if it's the latter, then who might be at fault. At first, the truth seems obvious: Isobel seems to have a flippant attitude with both truth and memory, both of which she seems to approach in a changeable manner, while Nina is immensely protective of and deferential to her older sister. It's little wonder, then, that Nina is wary of leaving her sister alone with her newborn son. But yet, as we learn more about Nina, we can't help but wonder whether there's some narrative misdirection at work here, or whether we too, like Nina, are being buffeted by the manipulative hand of Isobel into seeing a truth that might not be there at all.

The novel is awash with nature and place, both of which provide an off-kilter sense of the gothic. The pages are rich with descriptions of the sensuality of food and human physicality, both of which Nina partakes in with bacchanal delight, which only stand out further given the counterpoint of Isobel's sensory abstinence. Is the latter's approach some sort of penance? Or is it a response to Nina's own appetites? Or is each merely one side of a coin?

Whichever conclusion you come to by the end of the book--the onus is, after all, on you--I'm willing to contend that you'll be deeply unnerved when you've turned the final page. (less)

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Aug 20, 2012 George King rated it 4 of 5 stars

I'd never read Dunmore before. This novel is a psychological thriller with some nice poetic passages. It explores a mystery from two sisters' childhood and the relationship of the two women as adults. The narrative moves along rapidly, and the author's use of language is at times exquisite. There are also some notably frank sexual passages. The denouement didn't blow me away quite as much as I thought it would.

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Mar 12, 2012 Sandra Lawson rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Helen Dunmore never fails to disappoint. She has a way with words and makes you believe you are inside the narrative and able to experience the sensations she evokes. I can always feel, taste, smell and hear a Dunmore novel.

Talking to the Dead is filled with tension and an awareness that something unpleasant will be revealed. The story unfolds through the filter of Nina, the younger of two sisters, who relates in the present tense, adding to the immediacy of the narrative. Although the perspecti...more

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May 11, 2009 Monique rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2009-reading-list

Unfortunately this book was not as suspenseful and drama filled as the synopsis would have one believe. It was actually kind of flat. There were some interesting things happening in the story but Dunmore failed to make me really care. It was all rather boring.

The story is told through the first person perspective of Nina. Nina character could have been interesting but she failed to connect to me. I wanted her to be interesting and exciting but she was as boring as the drama and suspense that was...more

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Feb 11, 2013 Tim Cole rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Reason for reading:
Helen Dunmore had proved twice what a stunning writer she is. With more of her books waiting on the shelf, this seemed an intriguing next read.

About the book:
Sisters Nina and Isabel have been bound together since the cot death of their baby brother when they were both children. They live different lives, Nina in London as a single freelance photographer, Isabel married and in the country. Isabel gives birth to her first child and Nina comes to help look after her, joining Isab...more Reason for reading:
Helen Dunmore had proved twice what a stunning writer she is. With more of her books waiting on the shelf, this seemed an intriguing next read.

About the book:
Sisters Nina and Isabel have been bound together since the cot death of their baby brother when they were both children. They live different lives, Nina in London as a single freelance photographer, Isabel married and in the country. Isabel gives birth to her first child and Nina comes to help look after her, joining Isabel’s husband Richard and her gay friend Edward in a strange atmosphere. Hidden memories of their baby brother come back from twenty-five years before and a mood of suspicion and betrayal starts to break out against the backdrop of the hottest summer for a century. Nina begins an illicit affair with Richard. Each sister claims to possess knowledge that could destroy the other. But who is lying, and who is telling the truth? What will that potentially destructive information mean.

Quote, unquote:
We’d never been to a Christening. Isabel and I used to sit on the wall on Sundays in our bare feet to scorn the tidy church-going boys and girls as they came by. Once Isabel took me to a Methodist Sunday school, explaining to the lady there that I was very interested in Jesus and our mummy and daddy wouldn’t let me find out about him. This went down well, and the next thing I was colouring a donkey while Isabel won a prize for telling a Bible story in her own words. But the prize was only a packet of Spangles.

What was good:
Dunmore conjures atmosphere from the idyllic setting, with vivid descriptions of the Sussex countryside; Isabel’s garden in particular. Her writing is always poetic – here it is a real strength. Sometimes sensitive, sometimes shocking, she makes you see and feel everything with her descriptive clarity. The differences between the sisters are well portrayed. Nina is sensuous with food and sex. Isabel is anorexic and frigid. They are hot and cold. All the way through the weather and the food are used as dramatic tools. The chopping backwards and forwards in time is also done cleverly. The psychology is marvelous. It may not be as brilliant as the other two books of hers I have read this year, but a very good read nonetheless

What wasn't good:
There was a choice of only two possible endings and you could make a good guess which one it was going to be from what went before. At least the not-so-big reveal was left until the final page. And it worked.(less)

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Sep 02, 2012 Cindy rated it 2 of 5 stars

When I was reading some of the other reviews, I came across one where the person had either read the book before, or she thought she had started it but never finished it. I almost fell on the floor! The same thing happened to me! I actually read this one and totally forgot it and read it again! I kept feeling like I knew the story, but couldn't remember until I would read each part and then I would know I had read it before. Strange! The story explores the relationship between two sisters and ho...more

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Jan 16, 2012 Sally Whitehead rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: books-read-in-2012

I hadn't previously read any Dunmore, but bought a handful of hers on offer recently in second hand bookshop. Judging a book by its cover (come on, we all do it...) I assumed she might be in the same sort of realm as Elizabeth Berg, Anita Shreve, Sue Miller et al. And I wasn't disappointed.

This is good "women's fiction". Literary enough to be far removed from the irksome "chick lit" but with a real focus on familial relationships.

A slim novel (only 214 pages) this was a nice, quick read. Helped...more

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May 16, 2011 Sarah Shoemaker rated it 2 of 5 stars

The book had so much potential but I came away wishing I'd not wasted my time. The characters are mostly one-dimensional. I could barely create a clear picture in my mind of what they might look like. Isabel is described as beautiful but you only get scraps here and there of how she looks--the same goes for her sister. I don't understand the point of Edward at all. The motivations of the characters is also not realistic or remotely believable. Things happen haphazardly at some points while other...more

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Dec 02, 2012 Pat rated it 3 of 5 stars

The book I read was Talking to the Dead by Harry Bingham, but I can't figure out how to change it so I'll write about the one I read. It was about murders that began on the very first page and has some unnecessarily horrid violence involving Russian/Romanian slave trade which I quickly tired of. But, the element that kept me reading was the back story of the young female detective who was back from a nervous breakdown that no one could explain until the last chapter. That was very interesting -...more

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Nov 19, 2011 Steven Langdon rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This darkly shaded novel starts quietly then gradually overwhelms you. Isabel and Nina are sisters, intimately tied together from a difficult childhood, yet starkly different in instinct and character -- controlling and austere vs. creative and earthy. Dealing with Isabel's new baby after a traumatic birth, the two come to confront the much earlier death of their baby brother -- and the sisterly relationship dissolves amidst a compelling melange of new sexual ties, intense personal jealousies an...more

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Apr 30, 2008 Moira rated it 5 of 5 stars

I don't often mistakenly re-read a book. But it seems that I have done so with two Helen Dunmore books. I can't understand why, as both were excellent and very memorable. But, as with A spell of Winter, I realized about a third of the way through that I had read it before. However, I couldn't remember the end, and in fact, it didn't seem familiar towards the end so perhaps I never finished it - also unusual for me.

Anyway, it was very enjoyable. Dunmore has an amazing ability to describe things...more

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Jan 21, 2008 Sara rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: gluttons for punishment

This is a terrible book about terrible people who do terrible, nonsensical, and incredible -- and I mean really not credible -- things to themselves, each other and other people. Yet it's all so beautifully described! You just want to go on reading it no matter what, just so you can stay in this garden with these flowers and this hot summer sun, and all this beautiful food.

But before you know it, several hours of your life have been devoured. Then at the end, if you are anything like me, you are...more This is a terrible book about terrible people who do terrible, nonsensical, and incredible -- and I mean really not credible -- things to themselves, each other and other people. Yet it's all so beautifully described! You just want to go on reading it no matter what, just so you can stay in this garden with these flowers and this hot summer sun, and all this beautiful food.

But before you know it, several hours of your life have been devoured. Then at the end, if you are anything like me, you are very angry with the author for wasting your time. She has seduced you into spending so very much of your precious, irreplaceable time with these truly awful, semi- but not completely useless people. How has she done this? Well, she's spent the first fifth or so of the book making them seem on the surface like people you would like, people with whom you might very much like to hang out, maybe for a whole summer by the sea. So when they start to reveal themselves as amoral, stupid, and thoughtless, you are confused yet hopeful and trusting that there's some point. You feel sure, even up to five pages from the end, that some transformation to make your disappointment and disgust worthwhile is bound to develop.

I'm here to tell you it doesn't.

Oh, and by the way? Throwing a lot of not credibly motivated adulterous sex into a total non-mystery, of which both the "secret" and the resolution are transparently predictable from page one, does not make a book spicy or thrilling.

Yet were this book a hundred pages longer, I'd still have finished it; I'd just be that much angrier at the author (and myself). So now I'm going to do you a whopping favor. I'm going to quote for you here the very best part of the book. That way, you won't have to read it, but you can still enjoy one of Helen Dunmore's sumptuous descriptions completely anger-and-hatred-free:

"I find the pie under a plate. Edward has been at it since lunch, digging out the fruit, which he prefers to the crust. I cut a straight line across the spoiled part, and then a thick wedge, the right size for Richard. There's some cream in a jug, thick and yellow. Susan's mother sent the pie over, and it has a spray of elderflower in it to bring out the taste of the gooseberries. She has patterned the crust with pastry leaves. The inside of the crust is white and glutinous now the pastry has cooled, and cooking has thinned the skin of the berries so the seeds show through. I pick one out, fragile but still whole, and eat it. I am hungry too. I cut another piece of the pie, for myself, and pour cream over them both, take two spoons and shake some sugar from a castor over the cream. I can hear voices, but the baby has stopped crying. A door opens and the voices grow louder. They must be coming out. I pick up the plates and hurry out into the light, round the corner by the pond, and into the garden.

"Richard hasn't moved, except to take off his shoes and socks. he lies back with his feet in the sun, eyes shut. His feet are pale, naked-looking city feet.

"'Here you are.'

"We dig into the crust, the cream, the fruit. The edges of the cream are just beginning to swim in the heat already. I've always liked eating with Richard, because he is greedy, as I am. You can always tell. He leaves the plumpest gooseberry until last, to duck it in its own pond of cream. The sugar grits pleasantly on my teeth."

There. That's it, the best part of this book. Now you can go read something else.

You're welcome.(less)

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Apr 21, 2012 Emily rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

If you set most of the actual events in a novel in the past, thereby focusing everything on the characters rather than a plot, characters need to be more developed than they were here. I found the narrator's obsession with her sister annoying, boring and inscrutable. I will say that the author harped on the fact that the narrator is fat, which led to a lot of writing about food, which I like.

A combination of Mary Higgins Clark + Oprah's book club.

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Apr 05, 2013 Renee Johnson rated it 2 of 5 stars

Filled with morally bankrupt, selfish people, this book was really a disappointment. I could not sympathize with anyone except the child. The story had poor flow and the characters were contradictions of themselves and had so little depth that I found myself not able to identify with them or even care what would happen to them. This is a less than memorable book.

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Jun 12, 2011 Barbara rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: novel

A tale of two sisters together after the birth of the elder's son. Well done hints of horror as they reminisce about their younger brother who died as an infant. The depictions of food are mouth watering and sensual. The book would have been better had I come to care deeply for any of the characters, all of which are flawed in some unattractive way.

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Jan 16, 2012 Lucy rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Oh blimey, Helen Dunmore doesn't half view her characters through a cold, clinical lens! The writing is unfailingly beautiful, but icily so .. even the spontaneous sex scenes in the sweltering summer garden left me feeling a bit chilly! The characters are cool customers indeed. Curiously emotionless. I don't know why I found the novel so readable when the protagonists were so dull. But I think I could make a pretty passable hollandaise sauce after reading this book!

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Feb 20, 2011 Vanessa rated it 5 of 5 stars

so far so good
A short book
has made me think a lot about family/sister relationships.I have cried reading because it reminded me of how traumatised i was staying with my sister after she had had a casarean.

My favourite style of book:when very important,life changing things happen but they are just dealt with as if they and normal, everyday occurences.

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Sep 05, 2012 Jenna Mills rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I was surprised that this book became unputdownable. Most of the characters were all rather strange, and did react to events how you would usually expect people to. A relief really to be back in the real world! I do, however, fancy having that long, hot summer!

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Oct 25, 2009 JoAnne rated it 3 of 5 stars

Beautifully written book about disturbing characters and subject manner. Sisters who were unusually close as children because their mother was an distant mother. I did find myself compelled to keep reading, and that is always an extra star for me.

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Jun 23, 2011 Malla rated it 5 of 5 stars

Superb book. Delicately structured. Intense. Powerful. The underplay of how more powerful personalities play situations to suit themselves - sometimes with very little understanding of the consequences of hurt and guilt. Quite brilliant.

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Mar 08, 2012 Safron Mitchelson rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/10099692

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Apr 13, 2013 Gill Balfour rated it 4 of 5 stars

Helen Dunmore is one of my favourite writers and she didn't disappoint with this one. Evocative and moving, it was difficult to put it down.

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Feb 10, 2013 Catherinerobssister rated it 4 of 5 stars

Romped through this book 'cus it was so damn good! I would've given it 5 * too...but I was a bit confused as to what actually happened in the end though. Fab book and well worth a read...

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Feb 09, 2010 Elizabeth Desole rated it 4 of 5 stars

The food scenes are almost pornographic but the sex scenes weren't. Hmm. I did enjoy though (esp the porno food descriptions). Nice twist at the end

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Oct 26, 2011 Kirsty rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-it-swap-it-2011, read-2011

This is certainly one of Dunmore’s better novels but I still preferred The Siege and The House of Orphans. It began rather interestingly with the main character talking to a recently deceased one. I think the novel would have been more enjoyable if this narrative structure had continued throughout. Aside from a few random words which didn’t seem to fit - ‘jinking’ and ‘jouncing’, for example - it was well written. Some of the interwoven storylines were a little random and described too graphical...more

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About Helen Dunmore

I was born in December 1952, in Yorkshire, the second of four children. My father was the eldest of twelve, and this extended family has no doubt had a strong influence on my life, as have my own children. In a large family you hear a great many stories. You also come to understand very early that stories hold quite different meanings for different listeners, and can be recast from many viewpoints...more I was born in December 1952, in Yorkshire, the second of four children. My father was the eldest of twelve, and this extended family has no doubt had a strong influence on my life, as have my own children. In a large family you hear a great many stories. You also come to understand very early that stories hold quite different meanings for different listeners, and can be recast from many viewpoints.

Poetry was very important to me from childhood. I began by listening to and learning by heart all kinds of rhymes and hymns and ballads, and then went on to make up my own poems, using the forms I’d heard. Writing these down came a little later.

I studied English at the University of York, and after graduation taught English as a foreign language in Finland.

At around this time I began to write the poems which formed my first poetry collection, The Apple Fall, and to publish these in magazines. I also completed two novels; fortunately neither survives, and it was more than ten years before I wrote another novel.

During this time I published several collections of poems, and wrote some of the short stories which were later collected in Love of Fat Men. I began to travel a great deal within the UK and around the world, for poetry tours and writing residences. This experience of working in many different countries and cultures has been very important to my work. I reviewed poetry for Stand and Poetry Review and later for The Observer, and subsequently reviewed fiction for The Observer, The Times and The Guardian. My critical work includes introductions to the poems of Emily Brontë, the short stories of D H Lawrence and F Scott Fitzgerald, a study of Virginia Woolf’s relationships with women and Introductions to the Folio Society's edition of Anna Karenina and to the new Penguin Classics edition of Tolstoy's My Confession.

During the 1980s and early 1990s I taught poetry and creative writing, tutored residential writing courses for the Arvon Foundation and took part in the Poetry Society's Writer in Schools scheme, as well as giving readings and workshops in schools, hospitals, prisons and every other kind of place where a poem could conceivably be welcome. I also taught at the University of Glamorgan, the University of Bristol's Continuing Education Department and for the Open College of the Arts.

In the late 1980s I began to publish short stories, and these were the beginning of a breakthrough into fiction. What I had learned of prose technique through the short story gave me the impetus to start writing novels. My first novel for children was Going to Egypt, published in 1992, and my first novel for adults was Zennor in Darkness, published in 1993, which won the McKitterick Prize. This was also my first researched novel, set in the First World War and dealing with the period when D H Lawrence and his wife Frieda lived in Zennor in Cornwall, and came under suspicion as German spies.

My third novel, A Spell of Winter, won the inaugural Orange Prize for Fiction in 1996, and since then I have published a number of novels, short story collections and books for children. Full details of all these books are available on this website. The last of The Ingo Quartet, The Crossing of Ingo, was published in paperback in Spring 2009.

My seventh novel, The Siege (2001) was shortlisted both for the Whitbread Novel Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction. This was another researched novel, which grew from a lifelong love of Russian history, culture and literature. It is is set in Leningrad during the first year of the siege of the city by German forces, which lasted for 880 days from the fall of Mga on 30th August 1941. The Siege has been translated into Russian by Tatyana Averchina, and extracts have been broadcast on radio in St Petersburg. House of Orphans was published in 2006, and in 2008 Counting the Stars. Its central characters are the Roman poet Catullus, who lived during the last years of the Republic, (less)

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/131593.Talking_to_the_Dead?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1344266415l/131593.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/131593.Talking_to_the_Dead?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Talking to the Dead by Helen Dunmore[/url]

Talking to the Dead

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