About this ebook
The tragicomic tale of a dysfunctional middle-class family in postwar England from the award-winning author of Injury Time.
Though the Second World War has ended, times are anything but peaceful for seventeen-year-old Alan. His father, an entrepreneur who was once able to provide the family with a comfortable life, is now struggling to put food on the table. Meanwhile, Alan’s mother dresses as if money is plentiful and spends all her time avoiding her husband, indulging in the escapism of romance novels, and engaging in real-world love affairs. And as if a household struck by poverty and marital trouble isn’t enough, Alan’s bohemian sister, Madge, has been sneaking off into the sand dunes for lusty rendezvous with a German POW.
All Alan wants is for his sister to stop cavorting around and driving their father mad—and for a pretty choir girl named Janet to notice him. But the more he wishes for a normal life, the more chaotic it becomes. Everyone in his family is hiding something, not only from one another but also from themselves. And they’re all desperately clinging to something that is inevitably falling apart.
Award-winning British author Beryl Bainbridge has a keen eye for the dark humor that lurks in misery and a knack for illuminating the emotional rubble of postwar England. A Quiet Life is an entertaining family drama that is at once a quick read and a lasting portrait of twentieth-century life.
Though the Second World War has ended, times are anything but peaceful for seventeen-year-old Alan. His father, an entrepreneur who was once able to provide the family with a comfortable life, is now struggling to put food on the table. Meanwhile, Alan’s mother dresses as if money is plentiful and spends all her time avoiding her husband, indulging in the escapism of romance novels, and engaging in real-world love affairs. And as if a household struck by poverty and marital trouble isn’t enough, Alan’s bohemian sister, Madge, has been sneaking off into the sand dunes for lusty rendezvous with a German POW.
All Alan wants is for his sister to stop cavorting around and driving their father mad—and for a pretty choir girl named Janet to notice him. But the more he wishes for a normal life, the more chaotic it becomes. Everyone in his family is hiding something, not only from one another but also from themselves. And they’re all desperately clinging to something that is inevitably falling apart.
Award-winning British author Beryl Bainbridge has a keen eye for the dark humor that lurks in misery and a knack for illuminating the emotional rubble of postwar England. A Quiet Life is an entertaining family drama that is at once a quick read and a lasting portrait of twentieth-century life.
About the author
Dame Beryl Bainbridge (1932–2010) is acknowledged as one of the greatest British novelists of her time. She was the author of two travel books, five plays, and seventeen novels, five of which were shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, including Master Georgie, which went on to win the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the WHSmith Literary Award. She was also awarded the Whitbread Literary Award twice, for Injury Time and Every Man for Himself. In 2011, a special Man Booker “Best of Beryl” Prize was awarded in her honor, voted for by members of the public.
Born in Liverpool and raised in nearby Formby, Bainbridge spent her early years working as an actress, leaving the theater to have her first child. Her first novel, Harriet Said . . ., was written around this time, although it was rejected by several publishers who found it “indecent.” Her first published works were Another Part of the Wood and An Awfully Big Adventure, and many of her early novels retell her Liverpudlian childhood. A number of her books have been adapted for the screen, most notably An Awfully Big Adventure, which is set in provincial theater and was made into a film by Mike Newell, starring Alan Rickman and Hugh Grant. She later turned to more historical themes, such as the Scott Expedition in The Birthday Boys, a retelling of the Titanic story in Every Man for Himself, and Master Georgie, which follows Liverpudlians during the Crimean War. Her no-word-wasted style and tight plotting have won her critical acclaim and a committed following. Bainbridge regularly contributed articles and reviews to the Guardian, Observer, and Spectator, among others, and she was the Oldie’s longstanding theater critic. In 2008, she appeared at number twenty-six in a list of the fifty most important novelists since 1945 compiled by the Times (London). At the time of her death, Bainbridge was working on a new novel, The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress, which was published posthumously.
Born in Liverpool and raised in nearby Formby, Bainbridge spent her early years working as an actress, leaving the theater to have her first child. Her first novel, Harriet Said . . ., was written around this time, although it was rejected by several publishers who found it “indecent.” Her first published works were Another Part of the Wood and An Awfully Big Adventure, and many of her early novels retell her Liverpudlian childhood. A number of her books have been adapted for the screen, most notably An Awfully Big Adventure, which is set in provincial theater and was made into a film by Mike Newell, starring Alan Rickman and Hugh Grant. She later turned to more historical themes, such as the Scott Expedition in The Birthday Boys, a retelling of the Titanic story in Every Man for Himself, and Master Georgie, which follows Liverpudlians during the Crimean War. Her no-word-wasted style and tight plotting have won her critical acclaim and a committed following. Bainbridge regularly contributed articles and reviews to the Guardian, Observer, and Spectator, among others, and she was the Oldie’s longstanding theater critic. In 2008, she appeared at number twenty-six in a list of the fifty most important novelists since 1945 compiled by the Times (London). At the time of her death, Bainbridge was working on a new novel, The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress, which was published posthumously.
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