Ben, in the World

Summary

A sequel to one of Lessing's most celebrated novels, The Fifth Child. Many will recall the powerful impact The Fifth Child, Doris Lessing's 1988 novel, made on publication. Its account of idyllic marital and parental bliss irredeemably shattered by the arrival of the feral fifth child of the Lovatts made for unnerving and compulsive reading. That child, Ben, now grown to legal maturity, and is the central character of this sequel, which picks up the fable at the end of the childhood where the first book ended and takes our primal, misunderstood, maladjusted teenager out into the world...