The Fifth Child - Plot

Plot

When David Lovatt meets Harriet at a work function, they both immediately fall in love. They both share the same conservative outlooks, a rarity in the immoral London of the 1960s.

The two marry and purchase a large estate in a small village outside of London. The couple both intend on having many children, a wish frowned upon by the rest of the family. The two have four children, two boys and two girls, and their house becomes a center of joy for not only them but for all their relatives and friends who come and visit. That is, until Harriet becomes pregnant with their fifth child. Her pregnancy marks the beginning of the misery and suffering that this child brings to the family.

Works by Doris Lessing
Novels
  • The Grass Is Singing
  • The Golden Notebook
  • The Four-Gated City
  • Memoirs of a Survivor
  • Shikasta
  • The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five
  • The Sirian Experiments
  • The Making of the Representative for Planet 8
  • The Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire
  • The Good Terrorist
  • The Fifth Child
  • The Sweetest Dream
  • The Cleft
  • Alfred and Emily
Other
  • "Through the Tunnel"
  • "Flight"
  • The Making of the Representative for Planet 8
  • Prisons We Choose to Live Inside
  • Under My Skin
  • The Grandmothers: Four Short Novels
Related topics
  • Canopus in Argos

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