An After Dinner's Sleep

by Stanley Middleton

From the Booker-Prize-winning author of Holiday . Rejacketed and reissued by Windmill to mark the 40th anniversary of Middleton's Booker Prize win.One winter evening Alistair Murray opens his door to Eleanor Franks, a woman he has not seen for decades. A man apparently content with his life, even his retirement and bereavement have come as part of the natural order of things. But just when he thinks he must get used to the slow, lonely decline into old age, Eleanor arrives to make him call into question everything he has taken for granted.'Middleton wrote books you remember decades on... He wrote a calm, whispering prose, full of unspoken suggestion between ordinary acts of daily living.' Jenny Diski'He shows us the way we age and die now, with real and graceful disstinction.' Sunday Times

Genres: Fiction

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Stanley Middleton wrote 45 novels, including 1974's Booker Prize-winner Holiday. A Cautious Approach was his last novel.

Reviews

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alistair Murray's wife has died, and at 65, he is filling his days with small tasks, questioning when his life will be over. A blogger I read compared this to an Anita Brookner novel- small, intimate, and a bit sad. I loved this book, and see that Middleton has written many more novels that I can read, one of which won the Booker Prize.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautifully written piece about growing old, love and death. Also retirement, bereavement, relationships with adult children and much else. You may have to be of a fairly melancholy nature to enjoy this book or perhaps someone of a certain age who can in some way relate to the central character, Alistair Murray, successful public servant, now retired, widower, questioning what his life has meant and struggling to find his way. One of the best books I have read in a while.