Category: Reviews

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

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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)

Connect with Kate
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#6Degrees of Separation – A book chain from Theory & Practice by Michelle de Kretser to Talland House by Maggie Humm

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It’s the first Saturday of the month which means it’s time for 6 Degrees of Separation.

Here’s how it works: a book is chosen as a starting point by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best and linked to six other books to form a chain. Readers and bloggers are invited to join in by creating their own ‘chain’ leading from the selected book.

Kate says: Books can be linked in obvious ways – for example, books by the same authors, from the same era or genre, or books with similar themes or settings. Or, you may choose to link them in more personal or esoteric ways: books you read on the same holiday, books given to you by a particular friend, books that remind you of a particular time in your life, or books you read for an online challenge. Join in by posting your own #6Degrees chain on your blog and adding the link in the comments section of each month’s post.   You can also check out links to posts on X using the hashtag #6Degrees.

This month’s starting book is Theory & Practice by Michelle de Kretser, winner of the 2025 Stella Prize. As usual it’s a book I haven’t read but the mention in the blurb of it ‘taking up Woolf’s quest for adventurous literary form’ provided me with inspiration. Links from each title will take you to my review or the book description on Goodreads.

Is Flush by Virginia Woolf, a book narrated from the point of view of Elizabeth Barrett-Browning’s spaniel, an example of ‘adventurous literary form’? Debate amongst yourselves. I’m not a dog lover but I enjoyed Woolf’s sly, mocking humour which kept it from becoming overly sentimental.

In poker, a flush is a hand consisting of five cards of the same suit. Let’s pick a suit… diamonds. Mila Pavlichenko, the heroine of The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn, is based on the real life Lyudmila Pavlichenko who became a sniper and served in the Russian army on the frontline in World War 2. She also forms an unexpected friendship with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of then President Franklin D Roosevelt, also features in Kane by Graham Hurley. The book opens shortly after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour, the event which resulted in the entry of the United States into World War 2.

In Eagle & Crane by Suzanne Rindell, the lives of two young aerial stuntmen, one the son of Japanese immigrants, are changed following the attack on Pearl Harbour and the US government’s decision to intern Japanese Americans.

Eagles, cranes… There are more birds in House of Birds by Morgan McCarthy. They’re not real ones but part of the design of wallpaper in a room of a derelict house inherited by the girlfriend of the main character. Whilst clearing the house he discovers a hidden diary from the 1920s. It reveals a story of forbidden love, and the cruel and longlasting legacy of the First World War.

Talland House by Maggie Humm is partly set in First World War London and features Lily Briscoe, a character from Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, bringing me full circle to the starting book.

My chain features dogs, birds and Woolfs. Where did your chain take you?