Book Review – Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson #20BooksofSummer2025

About the Book

Ruby Lennox was conceived grudgingly by Bunty and born while her father, George, was in the Dog and Hare in Doncaster telling a woman in an emerald dress and a D-cup that he wasn’t married. Bunty had never wanted to marry George, but he was all that was left. She really wanted to be Vivian Leigh or Celia Johnson, swept off to America by a romantic hero. But here she was, stuck in a flat above the pet shop in an ancient street beneath York Minster, with sensible and sardonic Patricia aged five, greedy cross-patch Gillian who refused to be ignored, and Ruby…

Ruby tells the story of The Family, from the day at the end of the nineteenth century when a travelling French photographer catches frail beautiful Alice and her children, like flowers in amber, to the startling, witty, and memorable events of Ruby’s own life.

Format: Hardcover (336 pages) Publisher: Doubleday
Publication date: 1st January 1995 Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

Behind the Scenes at the Museum was Kate Atkinson’s debut novel and, having read other books of hers, I can see it contains the keen eye for observational detail, the imagination and sardonic humour of later books.

Ruby goes one better than Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield who proudly announces, ‘I am born’ by telling the story of her life from the moment of her conception. Ruby’s is a rather accident prone family and some of these verge on the farcical whilst others are tragic. Her mother Bunty is a larger-than-life figure, not especially likeable but someone you can’t ignore. The same can’t be said for her approach to motherhood which basically involves ignoring her children for most of the time in order to concentrate on her rigorous regimen of household cleaning. However, even here, something more tragic lies beneath the surface.

Ruby’s memories of her childhood, school days and family holidays are interspersed with vignettes (or ‘footnotes’ as they are called in the book) that describe events in the lives of family members stretching back several generations. These are not arranged chronologically and there are a lot of family members meaning I found it very difficult to remember who was who and how they were related. Some of the ‘footnotes’ are very funny, such as that involving a wedding that takes place on the same day as the 1966 World Cup Final. Others, for example those set in the First and Second World Wars, are very moving.

Although I found the shifting back and forth in time rather confusing, I admired the way the author created a sense of each period and the clever use of objects to create connections down the generations: a silver locket, a rabbit’s foot, a photograph. Those who know York will find themselves easily able to picture Ruby’s travels around the city. I also loved the humorous episodes, the family holiday in Scotland in the company of their neighbours, the Ropers, being a great example.

The latter years of Ruby’s life are wrapped up rather quickly given they involve some quite major events. Perhaps, in a way, that fits the book’s title. Lingering over the first objects in a museum and merely glancing at the final ones in your eagerness to get to the gift shop or tearoom.

Behind the Scenes at the Museum is the first book from my 20 Books of Summer 2025 list. And, yes, I do know it’s already July and I need to get a move on.

In three words: Engaging, witty, episodic
Try something similar: The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne

About the Author

Kate Atkinson won the Whitbread (now Costa) Book of the Year Award with her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum. Her 2013 novel Life After Life, now a BBC TV series starring Thomasin McKenzie, won the South Bank Sky Arts Literature Prize and the Costa Novel of the Year Award, was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, and was also voted Book of the Year by the independent booksellers associations on both sides of the Atlantic. A God in Ruins, also a winner of the Costa Novel of the Year Award, is a companion to Life After Life, although the two can be read independently.

Her six bestselling novels featuring former detective Jackson Brodie – Case Histories, One Good Turn, When Will There Be Good News?, Started Early, Took My Dog, Big Sky and Death at the Sign of the Rook – became the BBC TV series Case Histories, starring Jason Isaacs.

Kate Atkinson was awarded an MBE in the 2011 Queen’s Birthday Honours List, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. (Bio: Author website/Photo: Goodreads author page)

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