Light Years

As featured on BBC Radio 4 Open BookTold with exceptional grace, The Light Years is a modern classic of twentieth-century English life and is the first novel in Elizabeth Jane Howard’s extraordinary, bestselling family saga, The Cazalet Chronicles.'She helps us to do the necessary thing – open our eyes and our hearts' – Hilary Mantel, bestselling author of Wolf HallEvery summer, the Cazalet brothers – Hugh, Edward and Rupert – return to the family home in the heart of the Sussex countryside with their wives and children. There, they are joined by their formidable parents and unmarried sister Rachel to enjoy two glorious months of picnics, games and sun-drenched excursions to the coast. But not even this idyllic setting can soothe the siblings’ fears and heartache.Hugh, haunted by memories of the Great War, is terrified at the looming prospect of a second; Edward, charming and handsome, is torn between his wife and his latest infidelity; and Rupert, a talented painter, is in turmoil over his inability to please his demanding new wife. Meanwhile, Rachel’s unflinching loyalty to the family means risking her one chance at happiness with Sid, the woman she loves . . .'The Light Years . . . should be read by everyone. She writes about family relationships in the most moving and beautiful way' – Bella Mackie, bestselling author of How to Kill Your FamilyThe Light Years is the first volume in the extraordinary Cazalet Chronicles. Continue the dazzling historical series with Marking Time and Confusion.

She is one of those novelists who shows, through her work, what the novel is for . . . She helps us to do the necessary thing – open our eyes and our hearts, The Light Years is an immense piece of work and should be read by everyone. She writes about family relationships in the most moving and beautiful way, Like [Elena] Ferrante, Howard’s fictional sphere is domestic and yet reveals deeper truths about human nature, Howard is a sharp observer of human drama and psychology, and writes about pain, loss and longing superbly well, I don’t know how I’d managed to miss [The Cazalet Chronicles] until now, but they’re absolute heaven

Elizabeth Jane Howard was the author of fifteen highly acclaimed novels, including the five volumes of The Cazalet Chronicles, as well as After Julius, Falling, Getting It Right, Love All, and Odd Girl Out. The Cazalet Chronicles – The Light Years, Marking Time, Confusion, Casting Off and All Change – have become established as modern classics and have been adapted for a major BBC television series and for BBC Radio 4. She had one child, Nicola, and married three times – lastly to fellow author Sir Kingsley Amis. In 2000 she was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List, and in 2002 Macmillan published her autobiography, Slipstream. She died, aged ninety, at home in Suffolk on 2 January 2014.