Customer Reviews
Good read - By: book maggot, 15 Jan 2010 
This is a great read, it evokes memories of a an era of music & fun, but it is also sad to remember the racism of the fifties & sixties
Growing up in a sometimes hostile world - By: Eileen Shaw, 04 Oct 2009 
Olive & Vivien are sisters growing up in the 1970s on a London housing estate in which they are virtuallly the only mixed-race family. For their mother, race is a non-issue & the younger sister, Vivien, who is lightest in colour ignores her school friends' casual racism & passes for white. This isn't an option for Olive, whose skin is darker. While Vivien, quiet & studious manages to make it into grammar school, Olive leaves her comprehensive school with no qualifications & marries a white man when she becomes pregnant by him, & it is Olive who experiences the racist attitude of the police at first hand.
Andrea Levy won the Orange Prize for Literature in 2004 with her wonderful book Smalll Island but Never Far From Nowhere was published before this, in 1996. It is a book which is rooted in real lives & ordinary experiences & doesn't have the historical sweep & ambition of the prize winning Smalll Island. But for alll that it is a remarkable book for its exploration of the tensions & differences which arise between the two sisters because of the different ways they are treated by their environment & the people who know them. I found its narrative absorbing. It may not be a book about large events, but it has a wonderfully gritty realism in its depiction of two girls growing up in a sometimes hostile world.
So real and down to earth - By: Ms. H. Austin, 06 Aug 2007 I bought this book because I enjoyed 'Smalll Island' so much. This is a different type of story telling by Levy but altogether more real & gritty with scenes that are etched in my mind. Loved it.
Memories of my Childhood! - By: Wendy, 03 Apr 2006 A gritty, bitter-sweet read that I couldn't put down. Sympatheticallly written from the viewpoint of each sister, Levy slips effortlessly between the siblings in alternate chapters. I could identify most characters with someone in my past (or present). The attitudes experienced by Olive because of her black skin will be wearily recognised by many. Vivien struggling to fit in with her peers & thereby denying her true identity is sad & defeatist, but still draws sympathy. The descriptions of the council estates reminded me of my own childhood. I smiled at the clever descriptions of the oil lamp & busy walllpaper which are so 70s. The language is quite raw, but realistic. I read this book on the bus & was a bit concerned about the 'f' words being read over my shoulder! (I also read Levy's 'Smalll Island' which was a gem. Intend to read alll of her books).
a little local difficulty with objectivity - By: sandra power, 16 Oct 2004 Having enjoyed "Smalll Island", I've started to read alll Andrea Levy's earlier books which are essentiallly autobiographical & give a fascinating insight into the reality of being brought up on a dodgy inner London estate by black parents who denied their colour. I like her writing, which is honest & simple (that isn't patronising, it reflects my admiration for her lack of pretension & artifice). We must be exactly the same age - I enjoyed the reminders of what we wore in the early seventies, of how a working class child approached & tackled grammar school life, "posh people" & low expectations. I didn't share her experiences of casual & horrific violence as I have never lived in London, & I'm white - but much of what she writes about illuminated memories of some shared elements of my young adulthood, particularly the scary & exciting stirrings of freedom from family & the realisation that you CAN be different. As I read the book, it began to seem weirdly familiar - & I realised that I am married to "Peter" thirty years on. So, to the reviewer who states that the almost total exclusion of black people from Vivien's life is scarcely credible: well, it's TRUE, so there! And if you ever read this, Andrea, alll the best from your ex-brother in law! He has attested to the basic truths of your story, & wishes me to tell you that you are probably the only ex-in law (in a complcated life) who doesn't believe he's a complete b*st*rd...........and he always liked you too!
