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The Northern Clemency

3.35 of 5 stars 3.35 · rating details · 1,158 ratings · 274 reviews

In 1974, the Sellers family is transplanted from London to Sheffield in northern England. On the day they move in, the Glover household across the street is in upheaval: convinced that his wife is having an affair, Malcolm Glover has suddenly disappeared. The reverberations of this rupture will echo through the years to come as the connection between the families deepens....more

Hardcover, 738 pages

Published April 1st 2008 by Fourth Estate (first published 2008)

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Nov 25, 2008 Maya Panika rated it 3 of 5 stars

THE NORTHERN CLEMENCY by PHILIP HENSHER

This is a most interesting book. A truly epic tale (around 300,000 words) of the everyday that follows the lives of two Sheffield families from the seventies to the mid nineties – and it really is a story of the everyday. Nothing truly momentous happens, even the ‘Big’ events are the Big things that happen to us all; death, sudden life threatening illness, emigration, job change, a court case. Nothing world-shattering happens. There are no startling twists...more THE NORTHERN CLEMENCY by PHILIP HENSHER

This is a most interesting book. A truly epic tale (around 300,000 words) of the everyday that follows the lives of two Sheffield families from the seventies to the mid nineties – and it really is a story of the everyday. Nothing truly momentous happens, even the ‘Big’ events are the Big things that happen to us all; death, sudden life threatening illness, emigration, job change, a court case. Nothing world-shattering happens. There are no startling twists of plot because there’s actually, very little plot – just a vast, spidering tapestry of the normal things of Life .

Which is what makes it such an unusual and compelling book. I can’t say I found it hard to put down – I did put it down, frequently (it’s a very big book, my wrists got tired) but I always picked it up again. I wanted to know what was going to happen to these ordinary, fascinating, dreary, hateful, selfish, kind, cruel, indifferent, loving and loveable people.

Some I grew to dislike intensely; vain, self-centred Sandra, the oftentimes cruel and selfish Katherine. For all his deceits, I rather liked Nick. I adored poor sweet nerdy, Francis but most of all, my heart went out to Tim. I never really worked out whether the author wanted us to hate him, sometimes it felt like that, but I liked him. Life dealt him a rough hand and he didn’t often deal with it well but from the moment his mother did the cruellest thing imaginable, he consistently broke my heart.

I didn't care for the political slant and that coloured my feelings for the book and the characters. The times were dealt with... correctly, probably, bearing in mind the overwhelmingly middle-class-suburban background of the characters. At the height of the Miner's Strike, the only true supporter is the (slightly clichéd) middle-class Marxist.The only representative of the miners themselves is a right-wing would-be-scab-if-he-had-the-nerve. It's not how I remember it - and for that reason, it's the lowest point in the book for me, but there are stronger things here to outweigh the weaker bits.

The style is smooth, unremarkable, intense in detail – in an almost Dickensian way at times. It doesn’t get in the way of the characters and their world. It’s a world I know quite well. My family are from that side of Sheffield described so meticulously and the places - Broomhill, Sheffield City Library, the Rivelin Valley, Cole Brothers – so very well drawn this book was special to me in that respect above all others. You don’t have to be from Sheffield to love this book, but it does help. It's a good book (but imo, not half as good as some reviewers are claiming)(less)

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Jan 09, 2009 David rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2009

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: IF YOU LOVED (HATED) "THE CORRECTIONS", YOU'LL LOVE (HATE) THIS.

OK. Let's get the whole rating thing out of the way right now. Objectively speaking, this is a three-star book. But I enjoyed it very much - and read all 600 pages in about a day and a half. Which I think deserves some acknowledgement. There are many, many books that are far superior to "The Northern Clemency", but are way less fun to read. So I'm giving it 4 stars.

Here is an example of Philip Hensher in action a...more

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May 21, 2011 Lisa rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 21st-century, britain, booker-shortlist, fiction

I loved this. I don't think it's 'great' literature, but for nearly three weeks as I listened to it en route to work, I found it vastly entertaining - in the way that a well-constructed soap opera is entertaining.
Other reviewers haven't been especially kind to it, see http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/... or http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/... and http://www.theage.com.au/news/book-re...
Would I have enjoyed it as much without the excellent narration by Carole Boyd? Maybe not. But if yo...more

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Jan 16, 2009 Alex Csicsek rated it 5 of 5 stars

This sweeping novel covers decades in the lives of two families in suburban Sheffield in a series of episodes of varying length exploring family life, love and romance, growing up, Thatcher-era politics (particularly the miners' strike), the death of the English cities, and identity in all its shapes and forms. With nine main characters and plenty of peripheral ones, it's not surprising a book of such scope comes to 750 pages, but it is an easy read and can be done quite quickly and enjoyably.

Al...more

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Mar 01, 2013 Mark Landmann rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, favourites

I kept on moving this book down on my queue just because of its length, but in the end I zipped through it. Despite its length there were hardly any sections where my mind drifted and I didn't ever want to miss a single word. I can really see why reviewers here are comparing the book to Franzen... I almost wish I hadn't read that before because I found myself comparing as I went through the book, and usually finding this book not quite measuring up, though I don't really feel like that anymore n...more

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Jan 11, 2009 Michael rated it 5 of 5 stars

What is it about Brits and novel-writing? Must be something in the water. They are so good at it. Or, rather, they are very good at a particular type of novel (what F.R. Leavis would call "The Great Tradition") that I really gravitate toward. The finest American novelists tend toward the mythopoetic (Ellison, Morrison, Cormac McCarthy, Faulkner, Hawthorne, Melville) whereas the best Brits tend toward the secular and social. This is a reduction, but not a gross one, and many implications (and str...more

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Jan 06, 2009 Warren marked it as to-read

Shelves: book-list-2009

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. A finalist for the Man Booker Prize, Hensher's Sheffield-set suburban drama spans 20 years in the lives of two neighboring families: the Sellers and the Glovers. Katherine Glover's husband, Malcolm, assuming Katherine has been cheating on him, disappears the night before the Sellers arrive in Sheffield. Katherine confides her troubles in her new neighbor, Alice Sellers, and Malcolm quickly returns. Alice's daughter, Sandra, meanwhile, forms unlikely relation...more

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Feb 27, 2011 Susan rated it 4 of 5 stars

If you had asked me a week ago if I liked this book, I would have groaned and rolled my eyes. I completely stalled about 35% of the way into the book. I stalled there for about a month by reading other books and entire issues of the LA Times, unable to commit to finishing the Northern Clemency. Then with a quiet weekend of time, I picked it up again and within an hour or so, I was hooked into the rhythm of Hensher's story - a rhythm that totally eluded me earlier.

The story mainly follows the liv...more

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Jan 20, 2011 Glorialaihuang rated it 3 of 5 stars

Dear Lord, this book felt long. It also seems to progress in fits and starts - I found myself becoming engrossed in some parts, only to suddenly find myself sloshing through a randomly-placed description of the English moors. The story is nearly epic in scale - it follows the lives of several townspeople who live in an industrial village in Northern England during the 70s and the 80s. I will concede that the author effectively paints the Thatcherite/miner strike mood of the time. But I couldn't...more

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Dec 10, 2010 Felice rated it 5 of 5 stars

I have to warn you I'm going to need some extra adjectives here. I might be saying brilliant, wonderful, impressive and glorious so often that I have to resort to using multi-layered as well. Let me apologize in advance for that. I've read The Northern Clemency (picked up solely because it is so very extra chubby) by Philip Hensher and it is fantastic. You can stop reading my puny writing now and go get a copy of it if you want. I won't be insulted.

Clemency starts out in 1970's Sheffield and fol...more I have to warn you I'm going to need some extra adjectives here. I might be saying brilliant, wonderful, impressive and glorious so often that I have to resort to using multi-layered as well. Let me apologize in advance for that. I've read The Northern Clemency (picked up solely because it is so very extra chubby) by Philip Hensher and it is fantastic. You can stop reading my puny writing now and go get a copy of it if you want. I won't be insulted.

Clemency starts out in 1970's Sheffield and follows two families:the Glovers and the Sellers. Malcolm and Katherine Glover have three children and have been Sheffield staples forever. Bernie and Alice Sellers, parents of two, are recent arrivals having moved to Sheffield from London for Bernie's new job. The day the Sellers move in Malcolm accuses his wife of having an affair and disappears. The next twenty years bring other catastrophes and passing cruelties both personal and nation wide that have lasting effects on both families.

This a War and Peace type of novel only without all the war part. Clemency is not only concerned with the events of its characters lives but it also details the physical, social, economic and political world they inhabit. Nothing happens in a vacuum in The Northern Clemency. It's a big novel that charts the internal and external world of two generations in one community. A cross section. This is the book for someone who wants to be entertained and at the same time come away with a complete portrait of the times.

Hensher has a firm grip on this tremendous slice of life novel and yet he makes it all feel very organic and realistic. It's as if the neighborhood gossip were giving you the straight skinny over a drink while you perused the March 1973 edition of Ladies Home Journal (Speaking of which a little Can This Marriage Be Saved would not have gone amiss here.) rather than an extremely talented writing is behind it all plotting away, pulling strings and researching every visual element of 70's and 80's decor and food. Nothing occurs in The Northern Clemency that doesn't have repercussions. From the minutiae of day to day domestic life to the events of the time that were felt across the country everything is put into his microscope, inspected and then brought to our attention with magnificent writing.

I was totally impressed and after one quick phone call my local independent bookstore has ordered me an earlier novel written by Philip Hensher, The Mulberry Empire. Yippee!
(less)

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May 23, 2010 Isabelle rated it 3 of 5 stars

I should have loved this book; it has everything that makes a novel I cannot put down... loads of character, great settings, multi-generational plot spanning over decades etc...
The story takes place in Yorkshire, Sheffield actually and follows the trials and tribulations of two middle-class families living across from each other. In turn and through time, we "touch base" with each character: the two couples, together and separately, and the five children whose paths cross every so often. There i...more

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Jul 13, 2009 Bill rated it 5 of 5 stars

It is 1974 in Sheffield, England. The Glovers, Malcolm and Katherine, have lived in an estate development for some time and the Sellerses, Bernie and Alice, are in the process of moving into a house across the street from the Glovers. They are moving from London. The Glovers have three children, Daniel, Jane and Tim, and the Sellerses two, Sandra and Francis. Malcolm is employed by a building society and Bernie works for the Electricity, the nationalized public utility.

Hensher is a realist, a pr...more

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Jun 18, 2009 jillian rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: contemporaryfiction

This was a brilliant book. It's one of those wonderfully crafted books that goes so far into human nature, into the pieces of atypical, illogical behavior that, despite their strangeness, are still universally sympathetic. Set over two decades in Sheffield, UK, it follows two families through the events and non-events of their lives. It also gives a true insight into the lives of the coal miners and the social conditions that surrounded the decline of the mines, and the onset of the Thatcher era...more This was a brilliant book. It's one of those wonderfully crafted books that goes so far into human nature, into the pieces of atypical, illogical behavior that, despite their strangeness, are still universally sympathetic. Set over two decades in Sheffield, UK, it follows two families through the events and non-events of their lives. It also gives a true insight into the lives of the coal miners and the social conditions that surrounded the decline of the mines, and the onset of the Thatcher era. I found this book to be beautifully crafted, yet emotionally raw in places - especially in the themes related to sex, or to the petty cruelties children impose on each other. It is more character driven than plot driven, although as the plots do pick up, it does move faster and faster from the 1970s to the 1990s.

This is a universal book about the minute, everyday lives of people in northern England in the latter half of the 20th century, in a rapidly homogeonizing country, and a changing, globalizing world (which is contrasted, in places, against the unchanging nature of the moors). I also realized, after I finished it, that the characters of the older generation that are in their mid to late 30s at the book's opening would have been of the same generation as my father. And I thought, so that's what would have happened to Dad if he hadn't emigrated. He might have ended up living an everyday life in a suburb of Carlisle, much like the neighborhoods of Sheffield, where he would have been challenged to hang on to his livelihood as the region's industries were privatized and shut down. Also, his children wouldn't have had the opportunities and the drive that my sister and I, growing up on American capitalism, had. And maybe that's what I found slightly depressing about the book - the lack of vision in all the characters. What, after all, is there to be visionary about in the suburbs of Northern England in the Thatcher era? Hensher turns those visions inward, and focuses them on the everyday movements, and that's what made this book so fascinating.(less)

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Apr 06, 2009 Ian Mapp rated it 2 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. One word to sum up this behemoth of a book is a chore.

It plots the lives from 1970-2000 of two families in sheffield - The glovers and the sellers. They live in the same street, with a house party happening at the time when the sellers move up from London.

It uses the standard technique of plotting the family lives against the key political events of the time, mainly the miners strike.

So what is wrong with the book. Let me count the ways.

At 737 pages it is far too long. Nothing of any real note h...more One word to sum up this behemoth of a book is a chore.

It plots the lives from 1970-2000 of two families in sheffield - The glovers and the sellers. They live in the same street, with a house party happening at the time when the sellers move up from London.

It uses the standard technique of plotting the family lives against the key political events of the time, mainly the miners strike.

So what is wrong with the book. Let me count the ways.

At 737 pages it is far too long. Nothing of any real note happens that requires this length. The initial chapter sums this problem up perfectly. Its about 150 pages of attention to detail to tell the story that the glovers matriach has foreclosed a one night stand with her dodgy boss at a flower shop (its a front for drugs money laundering) and she hasnt embarked on a full flung affair. This is summarised by the unlikely event of her stamping to deaths her youngest sons (Tim) pet snake in the street. As clumsy a metaphor as you could ever expect.

Next is the characterisation. Its very poor and I struggled keeping up with who was a member of which family, having to write this on note paper in the inner sleeve of the book to remind me. This is a crying shame from the author as over a 12 day read, we should really now and care for the characters. But this doesnt happen. It doesnt help when new characters - such as the boy dying from some disease - are introduced, given a chapter and then disappear from the story. It also doesnt help when Sandra character changes to Alex half way through the book.

The politcis are a missed event. The tension of the period never materialises and it seems a missed opportunity to educate, inform or discuss the key events of the time.

I really am unsure how this made the prize list. I would give it 2 stars for ambition but this was a real chore to get through and i know (apart from the weight of the book) this will be instantly forgotton in a few weeks.

A shame. It was my time of book. Rumours of a hurricane is a similar example of this type of book that does things so much better.(less)

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Feb 05, 2009 Bookmarks Magazine rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Philip Hensher has been compared to Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, Jonathan Franzen, Claire Messud, Ian McEwan, and Virginia Woolf, among other respected literary writers, living and dead. No pressure there. For all its grounding in the classics

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Jan 14, 2009 Julie rated it 4 of 5 stars

I went into this book thinking that I might find it fabulous, given some of the reviews and the subject matter. That attitude usually seems to put a book——or a movie, or a person——at a disadvantage because so much is expected. Well, this is a long, winding narrative filled with characters who, at best, are mostly only semi-likeable. The writing is generally very good, although this was one of those books in which I not infrequently stopped and reread sentences, wondering exactly what the author...more

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Feb 10, 2012 Paddy rated it 3 of 5 stars

I would offer clemency to Hensher if he had cut out 150 to 200 pages of this novel, in which only a couple of minor characters (Helen's parents) captured me. If I could drum up more interest in the characters, I would examine them in terms of clemency. As it is, I'll let Daniel's final thoughts as the novel closes suffice--he knew all along Helen would forgive him for his book buying indulgence. Yes, the 1970s domestic aesthetics are reminiscent of things one remembers. Thatcherism isn't pretty....more

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Jan 10, 2009 Laura rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"He got into bed and turned his face to the wall, away from her side. All her life, Katherine had had a bedtime routine, and now she did it, muddy and torn, bruised and untended as she was. She took off her mud-encrusted skirt, her shredded slip, her torn and earth-painted blouse. In her bra and knickers, she sat down at the dressing-table. She took a puff of cotton wool from a transparent plastic tube, and opened a pot of cold cream. It seemed appalling to her that these familiar things had lai...more

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Jun 10, 2010 Alice rated it 5 of 5 stars

One of my favorites of 2010 so far. I asked the clerk at my favorite bookstore if she could recommend something, and she walked out with The Little Stranger (read and loved), Let The Great World Spin (which I was reading, at least until my Kindle got stolen), and this book. I have to go back and thank her. Hensher has written a big, sprawling multi-family saga of 1970's middle-class England, accurate down to the smallest detail, and full of hilarious moments. I think one of the reasons I liked t...more

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Mar 20, 2010 Athena rated it 5 of 5 stars

I picked this book out at the library because the cover noted that it was shortlisted for the Man Booker (in 2008) and that's enough for me. I did not read (and don't even recognize) the book that won that year, but boy, *The Northern Clemency* is a winner. The book opens in the house of the Glovers, with Katherine Glover and some of the women in her neighborhood gossiping: an opening in the spirit of Tolstoy and *War and Peace*. So I was hooked. If I'd had the luxury to sit around and read this...more

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Dec 12, 2008 Liza rated it 3 of 5 stars

I'm conflicted about this book. On the one hand, I thought that Hensher absolutely nailed the atmosphere of suburban living in his mostly compelling descriptions of the geography, boredom, and claustrophobia. He also nailed British white middle class identity. On the other hand, some of The Northern Clemency's characters were repugnant, seeming more like caricatures that plausible humans.

I think the problem with this book is that it simply covers too much time. First it focuses on two families l

...more

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Jul 31, 2011 Catherine Woodman added it · review of another edition

I thought this was a well written book that got a little bit harder to hold together as it went along--at the beginning the families are living in the same town, next to each other, nad as the story progresses, the kids all grow up and move away, and so it naturally becomes more disjointed as the stories are less interwoven for the individuals involved--but I thought it was more disconnected than that would explain, and didn't like the way it ended--should have been longer or shorter--told more...more

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Feb 06, 2009 Jennifer rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: adult-fiction

The Northern Clemency tells the 25-year story of two families living in suburban Sheffield, England, from the day in 1974 when the Sellers move from London to the house across the street from the Glovers, who just happen to be in the middle of a domestic crisis. This book seems like an answer to those times when you're looking out the train window heading north from London and, by the time the post-war housing is passing by, you're wondering what their inhabitants' lives are like. (I still don't...more

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Jun 11, 2010 George rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Beginning in England in 1974, The Northern Clemency tells the story of 2 families, with a number of side characters introduced along the way, who are featured for a very short while before disappearing or moving to the sidelines. Using decade-long leaps, the book follows the families into the 1980s and 1990s. Rather than one large plotline, it is composed of various subplots, which, thanks to the timespan, rarely last the whole book, although their consequences might only become apparent in late...more

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Feb 08, 2009 Julie rated it 5 of 5 stars

I just loved this book. I loved it so much, I even loved the contents page. The book isn't divided into chapters. Instead, it has:-

Book One
Mardy

Book Two
Nesh

Book Two-and-a-half
In London

Book Three
Gi'O'Er

Book Four
The Giant Rat of Sumatra.

I loved the humour that's even present on the contents pages. But even more than that - the language speaks to me in so many ways. That word "nesh" - I just see it, and I'm six years old again, complaining about the bitter wind howling down Blackpool's "Golden Mile...more

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Aug 05, 2011 Katie Weeks added it · review of another edition

For all the hype about this sweeping saga of the intertwinned lives of two neighbouring families in 70s and 80s Sheffield, I found this strangely underwhelming (not to mention, at 700 pages, a bit too drawn out). Maybe because, while the author undoubtedly has an eye for the details of food, clothing and landscape which successfully bring a place and time to life, his characters never quite seem to make the leap from the page as 'real people,' always seeming at the mercy of the writer. And the o...more

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Jul 21, 2009 Lucy J Jeynes rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2009

A monster at 737 pages - ideal for holiday reading. Divided into 4 sections, three of which being called Mardy, Nesh and Gi'oer do give you a clue along with the title about the area in which this novel is set.

A family move from down south to South Yorkshire in the seventies. Oooh, spookily familiar.... So the power cuts, miners strike, Pot Noodles, Austin Allegros, Jackie magazine elements all struck a chord.

Not a lot happens, in some senses (but then, not a lot did). I enjoyed it enough to car...more

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Apr 12, 2009 Veronica rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

Somehow Philip Hensher has managed to pass me by up to now, but when I read a review of this novel and discovered it's set in Sheffield during the 1970s, I couldn't resist. It's billed as a state-of-the-nation saga on a Tolstoyan scale, following the fate of two families, the Sellers and the Glovers, from 1974 to 1994. It's certainly Tolstoyan in size, weighing in at a hefty 736 pages, but it lacked the historical sweep of Tolstoy. Tolstoy sets the minutiae of his characters' lives in the wider...more Somehow Philip Hensher has managed to pass me by up to now, but when I read a review of this novel and discovered it's set in Sheffield during the 1970s, I couldn't resist. It's billed as a state-of-the-nation saga on a Tolstoyan scale, following the fate of two families, the Sellers and the Glovers, from 1974 to 1994. It's certainly Tolstoyan in size, weighing in at a hefty 736 pages, but it lacked the historical sweep of Tolstoy. Tolstoy sets the minutiae of his characters' lives in the wider historical context with lots of references to major current events, and, in War and Peace, intersperses the action with long philosophical disquisitions. Hensher doesn't do any of that -- he focuses (very well) on the characters' daily lives, and the way they grow and change while remaining recognisably the same people.

All the same, I found it a bit baffling that they barely seem to notice the Falklands war, and apart from one character, a student radical, the miners' strike and collapse of Sheffield's industry brushes lightly by them. But at least Hensher manages to convey the atmosphere of an era without stuffing his narrative with brand names, the way David Mitchell did in Black Swan Green. He also very noticeably shuns the popular device of using music to situate the characters. In a rather supercilious and self-serving essay about state-of-the-nation novels published in Prospect, he says snottily: "I was a teenager when the Clash are reported by Coe as playing in Fulham. I wouldn't have cared. At the time, my records were mostly of Mahler, Schoenberg and Boulez." I'm rather glad I read this after I'd finished the novel, so I wasn't put off by his condescending tone when writing about authors like Jonathan Coe and Sebastian Faulks.

But he writes well, and he can convey emotion and character wonderfully; two scenes that stood out for me were the one where Katherine Glover returns home after being arrested by the police in connection with fraud by the owner of the Broomhill florist shop she works in, and a compellingly creepy scene where Sandra Sellers meets her secret admirer Tim Glover twenty years later. So I did enjoy it, and it's worth reading -- he just does himself a disservice by comparing his work to Tolstoy, because his strength is precisely in the mundane details of ordinary lives. Looking at his backlist, he appears to be startlingly versatile.

But the defining state-of-the-nation novel for me is still Jonathan Coe's What a Carve-Up And I even thought Tim Lott's Rumours of a Hurricane did a better job of summing up the change of mentalities during the 80s. Read this for the characters rather than the period atmosphere. And take his views of Jonathan Coe with a pinch of salt.(less)

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Jan 09, 2009 Laura rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

I had such high hopes for this book. Based around a set of families who grow up in Sheffield in the 1970s, the first third of the book read almost like an autobiography of my own childhood in Sherborne (albeit not in the North!). But halfway through this 700 pager I just lost interest. It's pitched as an Ian McEwan like story, but it's nowhere near that genius. The promise of shocking moments in the past that cast a shadow over the characters' lives never really has an impact, and I realized at...more

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Dec 28, 2011 Mark Field rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: literary-conquests, 2012

Ok... 738 pages of? The theme tune to the day time sopa "Days of Our Lives" comes to mind!
A family moves from London to Sheffield... they meet the neighbors, the kids go to school, hang out... then about page 500 someone gets arrested, someone goes to hospital, one, emigrates to Australia, one dies...
One becomes a successful businessman...
Much like watching "Coronation Street" in the 1970's and 1980's.
If anything its redeeming feature is the carefully drawn characters that you can really empath...more

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About Philip Hensher

Hensher was born in South London, although he spent the majority of his childhood and adolescence in Sheffield, attending Tapton School.[2] He did his undergraduate degree at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford before attending Cambridge, where he was awarded a PhD for work on 18th century painting and satire. Early in his career he worked as a clerk in the House of Commons, from which he was fired over th...more Hensher was born in South London, although he spent the majority of his childhood and adolescence in Sheffield, attending Tapton School.[2] He did his undergraduate degree at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford before attending Cambridge, where he was awarded a PhD for work on 18th century painting and satire. Early in his career he worked as a clerk in the House of Commons, from which he was fired over the content of an interview he gave to a gay magazine.[1] He has published a number of novels, is a regular contributor, columnist and book reviewer for newspapers and weeklies such as The Guardian, The Spectator , The Mail on Sunday and The Independent.
The Bedroom of the Mister’s Wife (1999) brings together 14 of his stories, including ‘Dead Languages’, which A. S. Byatt selected for her Oxford Book of English Short Stories (1998), making Hensher the youngest author included in the anthology.http://literature.britishco...
Since 2005 he has taught creative writing at the University of Exeter. He has edited new editions of numerous classic works of English Literature, such as those by Charles Dickens and Nancy Mitford, and Hensher served as a judge for the Booker Prize. From 2013 he will hold the post of Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University.[3]
Since 2000, Philip Hensher has been listed as one of the 100 most influential LGBT people in Britain,[4] and in 2003 as one of Granta's twenty Best of Young British Novelists.[1]
In 2008, Hensher's semi-autobiographical novel The Northern Clemency was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. In 2012, Hensher won first prize -German Travel Writers Award, and is shortlisted for the Green Carnation Prize. He also won the Stonewall Prize for the Journalist of the Year in 2007 and The Somerset Maugham Award for his novel Kitchen Venom in 1996. He wrote the libretto for Thomas Adès' 1995 opera Powder Her Face. This has been his only musical collaboration to date.
His early writings have been characterized as having an "ironic, knowing distance from their characters" and "icily precise skewerings of pretension and hypocrisy"[1] His historical novel The Mulberry Empire "echos with the rhythm and language of folk tales" while "play[ing] games" with narrative forms.[1]
He is married to Zaved Mahmood, a human rights lawyer at the United Nations.(less)

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“If you don't say anything it can't become important, but if you say it everyone's ever after got to walk round it like a pile of rocks in the living room.” — 1 person liked it

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The Northern Clemency

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