Customer Reviews:
 Highly recommended. August 2, 2008
Not many novels begin while the narrator is still in the womb, but "Behind the Scenes at the Museum" is that rare book. It tells the story of Ruby Lennox, right from the very moment of her conception, and the story, too, of her family: her disillusioned mother, Bunty; her two, very different, sisters; and, futher back, her grandparents and great-grandparents.
Atkinson perfectly balances the different narratives - we not only follow Ruby and her sisters through childhood and adolescence, but see Bunty's youthful ideals become tarnished, and empathise with Nell, Bunty's mother, and her family. The tragedies and comedies of the older stories are movingly and simply told; the portraits of women during the First World War, in particular, are well-researched and very revealing.
Throughout the novel, in fact, Atkinson acheives a superlative blend of tragedy and comedy; the poignant moments balanced against the light-heartedness of some of Ruby's stories. Anecdotes like the "World cup wedding" and the "holiday from hell", especially, are brilliantly and wittily told, and Ruby's extended family is populated by perfectly-crafted bizarre characters.
It is at the end of the book, however, where Atkinson's talent really shows. All the pieces of Ruby's life and identity finally slot together: we finally see what really happened to Nell's mother Alice; the end of everybody's stories; and, most, importantly, the central mystery of Ruby's life, revealed so cleverly that you wonder why you hadn't worked it out before. A modern classic.
An amazing first novel January 18, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I read this book about 10 years ago on a friend's recommendation and can remember thinking it was an amazing debut novel at the time. I decided to read it again recently, and had completely forgotten the story and so it was like reading it for the first time. I still think it's a great read and so well written that I still find it hard to believe it was Kate Atkinson's first novel. It's very funny and insightful. The story of Ruby Lennox's life, although sometimes tragic, is told in a very humourous way and it's the type of book that makes you want to carry on reading to the end to find out what happens to everyone as the characters are so well developed and really seem like real people. I would definitely recommend this novel and I think I'll be reading some more of Kate Atkinson's books.
A lovely book December 19, 2007
I have read one Kate Atkinson novel previously and did not find it that grabbing, but this book was recomended to me by many close friends and I loved it!! The story it's self is not a very fast paced one, but the characters are so beautifuly brought to life, that you have to keep reading to find out what happens to them all (there are many characters).
Although the ending was not particularly heart breaking, I found my self having a little sob, as I felt like I'd been with the characters through their heart break, especially Ruby.
I recomend it highly
Like a good old family gossip November 15, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I love this book: the characters are so warm and alive and it's a wonderful evocation of the period (at least I feel like it is, based on my mum's tales of a 50s/60s Yorkshire childhood!). It's like sitting down with several generations of your family with everyone telling stories about their lives, dragging a few skeletons out of their closets along the way. The quirky style and wry humour just add to its charm.
 Well observed but unsatisfying October 23, 2007
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
I found this hard to finish. Individual scenes are beautifully observed and written, and the lack of direction in the narrative isn't necessarily a problem: it worked wonderfully for Garrison Keillor in "Lake Wobegon Days", a book with which Behind the Scenes has a great deal in common. But where Keillor's narrator describes the flaws and foibles of his characters with warmth and love, Atkinson's narrators do so with distaste and ill-feeling. This relentless self-centredness and lack of sympathy for any other character (and a nearly universal dislike of the world as a whole) makes her first-person narrator, Ruby, unlikeable too. The total lack of sympathetic characters makes it hard to care about anything that happens. The result was a small-minded, mean-spirited world that I was glad to leave at the end.
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