A House Unlocked

Lively bridges personal and social history in telling the story of Golsoncott, the country house in Somerset, England, that her grandparents bought in 1923. As her narrative moves from room to room, she paints a moving portrait of an era of rapid change -- and of the family that changed with the times. As she charts the course of the domestic tensions of class and community among her relatives, she brings to life the effects of the horrors of the Russian Revolution and the Holocaust, through portraits of the refugees who came to live with them. A fascinating, intimate social history, A House Unlocked is an eloquent meditation on place and time, memory and history, and above all a tribute to the meaning of home.