Winter Doves

Walter #2

by David Cook

Walter has built a life in the mental hospital when he meets June, a short-stay patient recovering from a suicide attempt. She is bitter, attractive and corrosively articulate; she belongs, almost, in the world outside - yet she needs Walter. Comically and unexpectedly happy together, they run away from the hospital and consummate their love in a church.

Journeying south, to the underworld of London's poor and homeless in Her Majesty's Jubilee Year, their love blossoms, as generous and tender as it is acutely vulnerable.

Genres: Fiction, Literature

213 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

David Cook is a British author, screenwriter and actor.
He studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, London and his first role was in the 1962 film adaptation of A Kind of Loving. He began to write in the early 1970s - his first novel Albert's Memorial was published in 1972.
He won several awards: Writers Guild award, 1977; American Academy E.M. Forster award, 1977; Hawthornden prize, 1978; Arts Council bursary, 1979; Southern Arts prize, 1985; Arthur Welton scholarship, 1991.; Odd Fellow Concern Book award, 1992.

Reviews

[Shelley Diamond · Rating 4 out of 5]

My memory of this book is that it would make a great film...

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

from my 1981/2 notebook:
it's OK, good in parts, always engaging. The writer has axes to grind, interlarding the story with facts about poverty, social services etc, so a bit of a hotch-potch. Repeats things - Jane's eyes conkers, the river moves like oil in the night (might nick that).