'The underrated A Quiet Life is one of the funniest books I have ever read' HILARY MANTEL
'One of the best novelists of her generation' GUARDIAN
Seventeen-year-old Alan can't stand rows. But, though the Second World War has ended, peace hangs by a fine thread at home: his troublesome sister Madge creeps off for night-time liaisons with a German POW; their ineffectual father - broken by the hardships of war and an unhappy marriage can't put food on the table despite the family's middle-class manners.
Meanwhile, his mother pursues her escapist fantasies in romantic novels and love affairs. Obedient, faithful Alan is trapped among them all, the focus of their jibes and resentment, as inexorably the family heads towards disaster.
Beryl Bainbridge's classic early novel is a vintage story of English domestic life, laced with sadness, irony and wicked black humour.
| ISBN: | 9781844088638 |
| Publication date: | 7th March 2013 |
| Author: | Beryl Bainbridge |
| Publisher: | Virago an imprint of Little, Brown |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Pagination: | 166 pages |
| Series: | Virago Modern Classics |
| Genres: |
Modern and Contemporary Fiction Classic fiction: general and literary Humorous Fiction Historical Fiction |