Winner of the South Bank Show Literature Award

'If you read only one novel this year, make sure it is The Clothes on Their Backs'

Sunday Express Magazine

Vivien spends a quiet childhood encapsulated in the present, sealed off from the past by her timid refugee parents. She's ten before she finds out that she has a relative: to the horror of her father, her glamorous, dangerous uncle appears at their door, dressed in a purple mohair suit with his leopard-print-clad mistress upon his arm. But why is Uncle Sándor so violently unwelcome in her parents' home?

'Richly imagined it is a joy to welcome such a vibrant and thought-provoking book'

Michael Arditti, Independent

'Vivien, whose own interest in appearances verges on the obsessional, is drawn to her uncle's dark glamour and ambiguity London is as much a part of the narrative as Grant's unsettled characters, and, as 1977 approaches, the nightmarish changes in the city are jitteringly moved into the foreground'