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Jon McGregor
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So Many Ways to Begin: A Novel Kindle Edition

by Jon McGregor (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 395 ratings
In this potent examination of family and memory, Jon McGregor charts one man's voyage of self-discovery. Like Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day, So Many Ways to Begin is rich in the intimate details that shape a life, the subtle strain that defines human relationships, and the personal history that forms identity. David Carter, the novel's protagonist, takes a keen interest in history as a boy. Encouraged by his doting Aunt Julia, he begins collecting the things that tell his story: a birth certificate, school report cards, annotated cinema and train tickets. After finishing school, he finds the perfect job for his lifetime obsession-curator at a local history museum. His professional and romantic lives take shape as his beloved aunt and mentor's unravels. Lost in a fog of senility, Julia lets slip that David had been adopted. Over the course of the next decades, as David and his wife Eleanor live out their lives-struggling through early marriage, professional disappointments, the birth of their daughter, Eleanor's depression, and an affair that ends badly- David attempts to physically piece together his past, finding meaning and connection where he least expects it.
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  1. Print length
    385 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Bloomsbury USA
  4. Publication date
    December 27, 2008
  5. File size
    1.8 MB
  6. Page Flip
    Enabled
  7. Word Wise
    Enabled
  8. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  9. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

David Carter grows up happy in post-WWII Coventry, England, where he combs bomb sites for things to collect and dreams of one day running his own museum. He lands a job at a local museum and, at age 22, learns from a mentally ill family friend that he was adopted as an infant. Irate and bewildered, David struggles to comprehend "how such a lie had been incorporated into official history" as he begins his adult life. His marriage to Eleanor provides some direction, but the couple is often rudderless, and McGregor (If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things) charts with a calculated dreariness David's frustrated attempts to locate his birth mother, Eleanor's terrible depressions, their professional letdowns, a few moments of happiness and the way "it wasn't what they'd imagined, this life." Once retired, David is introduced to the Internet, which yields a promising lead in his quest to find his birth mother. Melancholy permeates every page; readers looking for an earnest downer can't go wrong. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

As in his award-winning debut novel, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things (2003), McGregor's follow-up work is a celebration of an ordinary life. Each chapter carries a heading, much like a description in a museum catalog, of a relic, such as a tobacco tin or a pair of children's striped gloves. These items hold personal meaning for the novel's central character, David Carter, acting both as a reflection of his lifelong interest in collecting artifacts and as prompts for a series of nonchronological memories. The novel gradually builds an intimate portrait of his childhood; his long marriage to Eleanor, who suffers from a debilitating depression and is estranged from her family; and the small triumphs and dissatisfactions of his career as a museum curator. The defining moment comes when, at age 22, David accidentally learns that he was adopted and sets out to find his biological mother. The search for home and for connection lies at the center of this slow, cadenced novel, which invests one man's day-to-day life with remarkable dignity. Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B000SEK68E
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Bloomsbury USA; 1st edition (December 27, 2008)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ December 27, 2008
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1.8 MB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 385 pages
  • Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 0008218676
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 395 ratings

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Jon McGregor

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4 out of 5 stars
395 global ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

  • Christian H Gortz
    5.0 out of 5 stars very ,very enjyable
    Reviewed in the United States on November 21, 2012
    Verified Purchase
    I am more of a non fiction reader but this book was suggested to me. Loved it. beautifully written,fantastic dialogues & suspense right until the very end 5 stars *****
    One person found this helpful
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  • the reader
    4.0 out of 5 stars What is family? Between three and five so four.
    Reviewed in the United States on September 21, 2024
    This is the story of David Carter and his wife Eleanor, from their childhood until old age. There is a prologue in the beginning about how David came into being, other chapters about Eleanor's mother being pregnant and chapters about Eleanor's growing up. Ida was overly strict causing Eleanor to hate her mother.

    The book is very well told, going into Coventry, England, Aberdeen, Scotland, and Donegal, Ireland. The writer writes beautifully, bringing readers into the world around.

    David had a happy childhood. He has loving parents, his father, a hard working man, who dies young, fifty-one. David got the good working gene from his father. He has an older sister, Susan, who can be bossy, and a mother who cares so much for him. The feeling of loving one another is so strong in this family.

    Then Auntie Julia, not a biological aunt, but his mother's best friend since both were nurses during the second world war. She tells David that he was adopted, he was born in a hospital to a teen-age girl. Dorothy, her husband was in the military, they have a young daughter, Susan, decides to adopt this b aby. Auntie Julia, a little older than Dorothy was lapsing into early dementia and did not know the problem she was causing.

    David, his father was dead, gets angry with his mother, will not speak to her. I was angry with him for the way he treated Dorothy. She is a good mother. But he worried about the young girls who had been his biological mother. Where was she? What was she like? It was constantly on his mind, almost causing him to lose his job in a museum, a job he loved and worked hard at.

    Eleanor Campbell met David when she worked at a tea room in Aberdeen where his job had sent him. She was planning to go to University. The book goes into how harsh her mother was, strict to the point of being cruel and abusive. Stewart Campbell loves his daughter, his youngest child. But he allowed her mother to abuse her. David and Eleanor marry, move to Coventry where she planned to go to university, she never did. David didn't either which caused him trouble with his job. A friend who turned out to be not a friend caused him problems. Hard working David who gave all.

    Eleanor suffered badly from depression. She was in terrible shape, stayed in bed, didn't care for anything around her. Deep, dark depression. Eleanor becomes boring reading about her depression. Could the mean mother cause her to give up on life? Could it be heritable? I did get angry at the way David was done by someone he helped.

    Then Kate is born, their child. When Grandma Ida dies, she and David go to her funeral in Aberdeen. Eleanor will not.

    This book tells of two ordinary citizens . So much of it is so sad, folks struggling through life.

    Dorothy was a good mother, a young widow, and so was his father, Albert.

    The chapters are written about and dated as to what the chapter is about. David's only ambition was to be a museum curator.
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  • JJC
    3.0 out of 5 stars A reasonably well written novel, but the storyline didn't ...
    Reviewed in the United States on May 14, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    A reasonably well written novel, but the storyline didn't really appealto me. It was very English and as a NZer I found it a little hard to identify with.
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  • R T Twinem
    5.0 out of 5 stars Incredibly moving
    Reviewed in the United States on January 22, 2021
    Jon McGregor had my full attention from the opening sentence….”Eleanor was in the kitchen when he got back from her mother’s funeral”.....The obvious question is why did Eleanor not attend? you are caught in the author’s trap you want to know the answer and so you start reading…...The seemingly ordinary story of the life of Robert Carter and his wife Eleanor Campbell and the fallout that happens when an offhand comment shatters irrevocably those values previously held to be true.

    Told in a similar writing style to William Boyd and set over a time period of some 50 years it is the language of McGregor that adds so much and enriches the reading experience……”so he might have been rushing to catch his train and not turned and seen her there. These things, the way they fall into place. The people we would be if these things were otherwise”.......”the house empty behind them, unspoken regrets and recriminations swept out of sight like crumbs from the table, silence blanketing the room, the two of them avoiding eachother’s eyes”.......”Every step drew her deeper into the hollows of the landscape, the green hills and shining rivers and mist-tangled treetops, as though she was clambering into the postcard she used to keep propped up on the mantelpiece”...... The author addresses and opens up to examination Carter’s work as Curator of a Coventry museum, his relationship with Eleanor and how this relationship is tested over a chance remark. The reader is able to identify and immerse himself in the story as it unfolds. Jon McGregor’s real ability is the astounding way he brings to life the ordinary and mundane in colourful descriptive heartfelt prose. Wonderful writing, brilliant author, highly highly recommended….”David joked to Eleanor one worn-out evening, and they were happy, in the ordinary ways which had evaded them for so long”.......
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  • Amazon Customer
    4.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful book about mostly nothing
    Reviewed in the United States on August 7, 2017
    Verified Purchase
    Tells the story of a man's life with all the little details that make up the exquisite beauty of an existence. Can't recommend enough.
    One person found this helpful
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  • whatithinkis
    5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully written
    Reviewed in the United States on October 2, 2019
    Absorbing and evocative. Whispering questions and moving toward and around answers in much the same way a life flows.
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Top reviews from other countries

  • Skeoghman
    5.0 out of 5 stars Just loved it
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 10, 2013
    Verified Purchase
    There's so much to like about this book; the unflinching determination to be honest about how complex our lives are - no judgments, just how it is, told with tenderness. So it is possible to write a powerful novel about mundane contemporary lives...and beautifully observed and written
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  • Kindle Customer
    4.0 out of 5 stars Lovely
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 26, 2018
    Verified Purchase
    Such a lovely, poetic, gentle, well observed family history. Structured in chapters headed with a catalogued museum piece. From the narrator's life. I wasn't as annoyed with the lack of speech marks in this as in Conversations with Friends. My favourite scene was the dance of Julia telling David of meeting and marrying her husband with its element of magic realism. The only other thing I wanted to say would spoil the story so I won't.
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  • hextol
    3.0 out of 5 stars beautifuuly written but disappointing
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 3, 2018
    Verified Purchase
    he really can write beautifully and the book is really well created and put together but felt terribly frustated that i couldn't enjoy it more as the characterisation (especially the two principals David and Eleanor) and the story line were both very weak. to properly understand the search for the mother you need a good grasp for a time-line which is confused by the linear shifts. I cuuld appreciate how clever it was and it did paint a brilliant picture of the post war era but ultimately failed to engage my heart at all
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  • Sandra Bartlett
    5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully Written
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 15, 2013
    Verified Purchase
    This is the second of Jon Gregor's books I have read and I loved them both. He writes with such beautiful descriptive words that just flow.If you like action thrillers this is not for you but if you want to read about people that you grow to care about and want to know more about I recommend this book to you.
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  • Just me and my thoughts.
    4.0 out of 5 stars He's an awesome writer!
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 2, 2013
    Verified Purchase
    Not as good as "if no-one speaks of remarkable things" (which I can't recommend highly enough - amazing) as it's not so cleverly written but still in a unique style. Can recommend. Reading his next book "even the dogs"...it's tougher going. If you like reading something that has a great story but also makes you think about how you read a book (gosh, that sounds weird, sorry, can't explain it better) go for Jon McGregor.
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