A Quiet Life

by Beryl Bainbridge

In the shabby, cluttered confines of their small house in an English seaside village just after World War II, a family of genteel poverty struggles daily, unremittingly, with itself. To escape the endless quarrel, the romantically disappointed mother spends half the night reading novels in the railway station, while the melancholy father weeps in front of the radio. The fifteen-year-old daughter sneaks off after dark to meet a German P.O.W. in the woods, and her brother, Alan, through whom we experience the domestic nightmare, suffers the family he tries to ignore and cannot alter, at least not until it has been destroyed.

Genres: Fiction, British Literature, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Novels, Historical, Family

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

Dame Beryl Margaret Bainbridge DBE was an English writer from Liverpool. She was primarily known for her works of psychological fiction, often set among the English working classes. Bainbridge won the Whitbread Award twice and was nominated for the Booker Prize five times. In 2008, The Times newspaper named Bainbridge among their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".

Reviews

[Gert De Bie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dat een rustig leven, een boek vol kleine en grote menselijke tragiek, dikwijls in de eerste plaats een grappig boek genoemd wordt, vinden we fascinerend. Waarom dat net het eerste is wat er over dit fijne boekje gezegd wordt, zou ons echter nopen tot het schrijven van een filosofisch traktaat over humor en wat mensen grappig vinden, waarmee we ons niet gaan bezig houden.

Het valt echter niet te ontkennen dat de toon en het ritme van Een rustig leven, zijn komische kanten heeft en het boek compulsief leesbaar maken.

Alan en Madge, broer en zus, groeien op in de nasleep van de Tweede Wereldoorlog in een huishouden dat het moeilijk heeft: zowel op financieel als op amoureus vlak hebben hun ouders betere tijden gekend. De zeventien jarige Alan wil grip op de zaken, eist verantwoordelijkheid van iedereen en zoekt antwoorden op vragen waarvan hij niet eens wist dat ze er waren. Dat maakt hem stug en stuurs in de omgang. Zijn jongere zuster Madge daarentegen, fladdert door het leven en vult die verantwoordelijkheden en keuzes op een heel andere manier in.

Beryl Bainbridge schetst met een vlotte, snelle en rake pen een eenvoudig en pretentieloos gezinstafereel met zijn kleine en grote drama's, scènes vol onvermogen om contact te maken of begrip te vinden, maar toch ook met sporen van liefde en genegenheid.
Een rustig leven lijkt in zijn ritme soms het literaire equivalent van de deurenkomedie van de plaatselijke toneelkring en treft als geen ander het dagelijks reilen en zeilen in een familie waar iedereen net niet zijn weg lijkt te vinden. Prima leesvoer!

Ook onze tweede lezing beëindigden we enthousiast. Heerlijk boekje.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve had mixed results with Beryl Bainbridge’s books in the past, and so I have left her for a long time in the box marked ‘undoubtedly an excellent author, but probably not for me.’

But there have been a number of things, over time, that have made me wonder whether Beryl should come out of the box.

I realised when I read her obituaries a few years ago that I had come in part way through her writing career. That planted a seed. Maybe I should go back to her early books, and move forward to follow her on life’s journey.

I had planned to make a start during Annabel’s Beryl Bainbridge Reading Week Last Year, but the timing was wrong. The idea went on to the back burner.

But then Beryl’s early, slightly lesser known, novels began to appear on the Virago Modern Classics List, with lovely eye-catching covers. It was a sign. We were meant to meet again.

I’ve read two of those novels now, a few weeks apart, and I was very taken with both of them.

‘A Quiet Life’ was one of the slim volumes I threw into my bag before setting off on a long train journey a couple of weeks ago. I wasn’t sure I was going to like it, but I thought I owed it a fair chance, a time when I could concentrate with minimal distractions. And that seemed to pay off.

It began with a brother and sister meeting for the first time in years, in a café to tackle the question of who would take what of their late mother’s personal affects.

Alan had taken a conventional path through life, and Madge had done the opposite. She told him that he had always been the favoured child, that he had been shielded from life’s harsher realities, but he remembered it rather differently.

He remembered an unhappy, dysfunctional family. A father who had a difficult war and bitterly resented that he had not come home to a land fit for heroes. A mother obsessed with the appearance of her home and her family. And Madge, who spent every moment she could with a German former POW.

Four lives pulled together in a small shabby, over-furnished terraced house. It’s wonderfully vividly painted, crammed full of period detail, and those details so perfectly chosen that I wondered how she knew, how she managed to pick out exactly the right things to illuminate the time, the place, the lives being lived.

Because period details are lovely, but a story needs characters to make it sing. And this story had them. It was Alan’s story and I felt for him, I really did, but I was also fascinated by Madge and fearful for their parents’ troubled relationship. Economic necessity and the fear of defying convention held them together, but it wouldn’t have taken much to blow them apart.

There was too much life, there were too many emotions, in that little terraced house. And when Alan found a girlfriend maybe he took his eye off the ball, or maybe it would have happened anyway. It had to one day.

What? Now that would be telling!

Beryl Bainbridge pulled me into a real family, real lives, real relationships. She showed me the pathos and the dark humour in all of that. She showed me that nothing is simple, that all things will pass, and that by and large we do always hang on to hope.

This isn’t my favourite kind of book but it’s a very good book of its kind, and that has to be a good thing.

[Callie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of those books that tells of a life commonplace and familiar and yet all together heartbreaking. An English family just after WWII. Unhappy with one another, making each other miserable and yet needing each other. Of course, there's the humor, dark and yet somehow always lightening the story.

Because I often read literary fiction, which let's be honest, can sometimes be short on plot or the plot is limp or confused, I found this one refreshing. I was pulled along by the action and when it ended, I didn't want it to. I mean, it never felt like a chore.

I love British novels of small, quiet home life and this one is perfection.

[Andrew H · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Quiet Life is a cutting title. All we want is a quiet life, we say. It is all that Alan wants. He would happily submit to peace. His family, apart from the wayward sister, Madge, all submit to a surface life beneath which passions boil and erupt. In this novel, Beryl Bainbridge has the family stresses exactly right -- mother and father are on the way down whilst trying to push their children up. Quietly, the surface is disturbed. Alan puts his hand on his girlfriend's thigh only to be told that is where her uncle likes to place his hand. Joan, the mother, mysteriously disappears at night. And father Joe, named after Stalin, chops up a family chair as a symbol of the throne he has lost. Again and again, small details reveal private horrors. Beryl Bainbridge writes a short and tense masterpiece here. (No pressure, like today, to write a blockbuster novel crammed with rubbish until it reaches four hundred pages, on the basis that more is better because readers like their money's worth). Her eyes are forever on perceptive details and acerbic sentences. And the shadows cast by societal expectations.

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

We first meet Alan as a middle aged man, waiting in a café to meet his sister Madge. They haven’t met for fifteen years. Madge had escaped from the conventional, claustrophobic world in which they were brought up in. Their mother has recently died, and Alan has been instructed by his wife – whom we never meet, not needing to – we know her type – to get Madge to take some of their mother’s stuff off their hands. In their first conversation for many years it becomes quickly obvious that they each remember the past rather differently.

From here we return to the domestic world of their adolescence – when Alan is seventeen his sister two years younger. The Second World war has ended, but there is not much sign of peace in their suburban home. Their father is war damaged, embittered by an unhappy marriage, seemingly unable to earn a living – he leaves the house each day for some unspecified purpose – which doesn’t earn him any respect at home.

Full review: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2016/...

[Cathryn Conroy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quiet life may be what 17-year-old Alan yearns for, but it's not what he has.

Taking place in a small, seaside town in England just after World War II, this is the story of a highly dysfunctional family where love is parceled out only on occasion and selfishness rules the day. Alan is a straight arrow. He sings in the church choir, takes piano lessons, and is making eyes at Janet Leyland—all as he starts failing in school. His rebellious sister Madge is only 15 but is cavorting at night with a German POW, which horrifies Alan. Their father is an inept entrepreneur who is going bankrupt, while their mother spends all the money on clothes. Mother and Father are continually threatening to get divorced and are continually cruel to one another. Mother disappears almost every night. Father is a bully. Doors slam. Furniture is destroyed. Harsh words are spoken. There is almost constant bickering. In Alan's eyes, everything is his fault and Madge gets away with it all. Each of them has secrets—secrets that are slowly destroying whatever semblance of family is left. Life in their small, cramped home becomes chaotic, unpredictable, and miserable.

Even with such a sad plot and somewhat disagreeable characters, what makes this short novel almost magical is the writing by Beryl Bainbridge, who was shortlisted for the prestigious Booker Prize five times. Just as their little town is still reeling from the destruction and horrors of the war with bombsites overgrown by tall weeds, so is this family reeling from the ways they are slowly destroying each other and the harm—intentional and unintentional—that they inflict. Alan will always care what other people think and internalize the trauma of scandal, while Madge will always do what she pleases without caring what others think of her behavior.

This is a sorrowful, but perceptive novel. Alan's dream of "a quiet life" is achieved only by bottling everything up inside him, and even though he's only 17, it has far-reaching consequences for the rest of his life.

[Iva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bainbridge is in her stride here; style and wit are demonstrated throughout this exploration of a highly dysfunctional British family. Taking place right after WWII as so many other good novels do: think Muriel Spark, Patrick Hamilton and Elizabeth Taylor. Life in seaside England is pretty colorless with unhappy parents, one wild teenager having an affair with a German prisoner of war, and the house too crowded for 4 people because the parlor was only to be used for company, and there was never any company! Pure pleasure.

[Beth Bonini · Rating 3 out of 5]

The cover of my Virago Modern Classics reissue has a blurb from Hilary Mantel stating: "One of the funniest books I have ever read." There is humour in "A Quiet Life" - a title with at least one level of irony - but it's the dark, biting kind. It's certainly not the kind of humour to make one laugh out loud, and I'm not sure if any reader will find it funny at all without some measure of recognition of the pinched English setting and unhappy family life depicted within.

The book is bracketed by a middle-aged sister and brother meeting up after a long gap of 15 years. The ostensible purpose for their meeting is to discuss their mother's recent death, and for the brother Alan - who had taken care of all of the arrangements - to shift some of the mother's belongings on to his sister Madge. But Madge, who has always been difficult and independent, has no interest in the baggage of the past - and refuses to take even her mother's engagement ring. The ring, small and inconsequential as it is, has a larger significance - because the children are damaged survivors of the battleground of their parents' unhappy marriage. Bainbridge is a writer of great economy - the entire novel is only 166 pages - and in the opening chapter she manages to give us a good sense, not only of the personalities of Alan and Madge, but also of their very different perspectives of their childhood. Each thinks the other has been the spoiled favourite; but perhaps that is always typical of siblings.

Most of the novel takes place during a short span of time just after World War II has ended. There are various references to the war, most obviously in the form of the German prisoner of war that Madge has a crush on. This is a gloomy English seaside town; it always seems to be raining and despite the great concern for proper (ie, conventional middle-class) behaviour, nearly every character in the novel is presented as strange, slippery and eccentric. They live in the kind of house where everyone is squashed into the kitchen because mother wants to keep the "lounge" nice for company. Money is a problem, and there are often references to the better days enjoyed before the Depression. The mother, who clings to her finishing school past - even if it was a Belgian finishing school of the most inexpensive kind - is obsessed with her hats, dresses and jewellery, and feels that she has come down in the world. Dissatisfaction is the one emotion shared by everyone in the family.

Bainbridge does know how to turn a phrase, and I did enjoy the writing - although it didn't add up to a wholly satisfying story. Of Alan: "He came from a household that regarded men as inferior; they were fed first and deferred to in matters of business, but they weren't respected." Of the ongoing disconnect between Alan and Madge: "She never coincided with anyone if she could help it. When he was happy, she felt sad, when he closed up like a clam, it was then she wanted to be open and confiding." Of Alan's efforts with his girlfriend Janet: "It wasn't fair, blaming him for not knowing what to do. If he had known and he'd tried to do it, she wouldn't have let him."

This was my first Beryl Bainbridge novel and I would like to read more of her work. There was definitely a strong voice, which is something I always look for and admire in writing. 3.5 stars

[Shambhavi Pandey · Rating 4 out of 5]

An unrelenting poignant and true-to-life tale of a very commonplace ordinary family set in the backdrop of the post-WWII era. A period drama of sorts, and before I even delve into the plot and narrative, I'd confess that all my heart and appreciation reach out for the excellent period detailings this whole short story is adorned with. A typical dysfunctional family of four, constantly bickering and quarreling, miserable and yet so needy of each other's familial support. We have, more or less, been there and seen the intricacies of family functioning. Not always happy, cheerful, and accepting; we have had our share of banter, querulous, perturbing episodes with people we call/mean our family, and that doesn't necessarily question our love and care for them, I hope not.

When the tale centers around characters who are dismally weary of each other yet cannot stop caring for one another, it does make a humorously dark and stimulating story. Given the plot to be relatively simple and hinged on family drama, it could have been time-worn or boring, but I'm surprised that I loved it for its mundane humdrum and homespun storyline. I was so into the tale, driven by action and engaging conversations, peeking inside the characters' hearts and souls. I simply didn't want it to end.

Reading this one also made me realize that I love British novels with amaze period detailing. Bainbridge's tone is humorously witty, and her story carries a denuded bleak undertone, which is my calling. It ain't normal right to be drawn so strongly to depressingly desolate and dark settings? But it is as it is. I carry my heart on my sleeve and am ready to have it shattered by the writing and story, I always give this power to the author, and Bainbridge didn't disappoint. I indeed lived this story rife with life, emotions, sentiments, flaws, and imperfections. The narrative engulfed me like I was a part of this dysfunctional family in that small terraced villa, just another member who would fight and argue but could not stand each other's absence or silence.

[Rick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this novel, first published in 1976 and in the paperback edition I have in 1977, on a table in Paris outside the cemetery La Pere Lachaise. At 156 pages, the novel is a succinct variation on Tolstoy’s observation about unhappy families and how they are all different. This family is a post-World War II nuclear family: father, mother, son and daughter. The novel begins with the two children, middle-aged and largely out of contact with each other meeting after the mother’s funeral. It quickly flashes back to a time when the boy was 17 and the girl 15 and their parents both alive and fighting one another with words, looks, and periods of abandonment. The son is the button-downed caretaker who fears embarrassment and public disharmony; the daughter is the anxiety-creating free-spirit who may or may not have taken up with a not yet repatriated German prisoner of war. The parents, a housewife and businessman whose business has either stalled or slipped fully into failure after a period of success early in the marriage, are experts at public disharmony.

Bainbridge lets the relationships reveal themselves in action and the individuals speak for themselves and she doesn’t belabor any part of it. Her prose is sharp, economical, and sure of touch. It is a sad, insightful novel of disturbed peace and the unintentional harm the desperate do to one another.

[Jo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sharp and bitter little novella about a miserable English family, just after WWII. One of those stories where you can't really work out what's going on. Well-written, but not very enjoyable.

[Nicola]

I picked this up in oxfam and was drawn into reading it, despite having book group reading to finish. It's wickedly funny, with BBs typical dark humour and it was such a pleasure to be in the hands of such a talented writer. It describes the miserable lives of a warring mother and father, she a woman who dresses and 'scrubs up well', he a furiously angry man driven to distraction by his belief she's having an affair- when she is in fact escaping his unbearable company by sitting in the local railway station reading a book. Alan, the older child, is, like his father, paralysed by trying to be normal and with constant anxiety about what others will think. Madge, the younger sister, is utterly without boundaries, walking through mud in her bare feet, romancing in the dunes with a German prisoner of war, doing whatever she feels like in the moment, not even recognising the need for a common language- she insists on calling the sycamore tree in the garden a willow and makes up facts to suit her whims. The story is bracketed by Alan meeting Madge much later, after their mother dies. I found the ending a little underwhelming given the violent and suppressed emotions in the main section, as Alan casually recalls his 'close family' in comparison to his own wife's' unhappy childhood'. One can only speculate about the state of Alan's own marriage, given his emotional blindness, and to wonder about just how much fun Madge has had in her life, knowing exactly what she wants and grabbing it with both hands . But I so admire the concision of this slim volume in drawing such a vivid picture of genteel post war poverty and emotional repression.

[Sian · Rating 3 out of 5]

(2.5)Whilst Bainbridge’s writing is of course good, this is a rather dull little book about a dysfunctional family in post War Britain. It can be summed up in one word; sad. The family is sad, their lifestyle is sad and the book becomes even more sad when you discover that it is semi-autobiographical, being drawn from the sad and argumentative relationship between the author’s own parents!

[John Newcomb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alan lives with his Mum and Dad and sister in a village close to Liverpool just after WWII. They are an eccentric family and at 17 years old, Alan is often embarrassed by them. It is a fairly dark comedy but very easy to read.

[Roberta · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Quiet Life descrive la vita di una famiglia in un paese inglese del secondo dopoguerra. Joe era un uomo d'affari ricco e di successo quando Connie aveva accettato di sposarlo, ma con la guerra tutto è cambiato e, anche se non si può certo dire che la loro famiglia soffra la fame, il loro tenore di vita si è decisamente abbassato. La reazione di Connie, che cerca di mantenere la testa alta, è di spendere fin troppi soldi in ciò che li può identificare, esternamente, come appartenenti a una classe più alta (hanno la macchina di proprietà, i due figli, Alan e Madge, frequentano una scuola privata, Connie spende molti soldi in gioielli - finti - ed abiti) e nel dedicare una buona parte della casa solo agli ospiti, condannando tutta la famiglia alla condivisione della cucina sul retro.

Ma l'apparenza di una vita tranquilla nasconde rabbie profonde, disfunzioni e stranezze: Connie esce tutte le sere, ad incontrare l'amante, pensa il marito, mentre invece si reca solo alla stazione dei treni per leggere in solitudine, lontana dal marito e dalle preoccupazioni familiari. Joe è occupato in affari di natura non specificata, ma spesso fonte di frustrazione e ira, così come il rapporto con la moglie e la reclusione in cucina, dove continua a sbattere contro i mobili. Alan cerca disperatamente di obbligare i genitori e la sorella (che esce di casa quando e come vuole, abile nel manipolare i genitori) a comportarsi in modo più accettabile, fino ad arrivare al limite della nevrosi. Madge, per conto suo, si incontra di nascosto alla spiaggia con un ex prigioniero di guerra tedesco e deride tutti.

Romanzo di natura autobiografica, A Quiet Life è sicuramente deprimente ed angosciante (la cornice del romanzo è l'incontro, molti anni dopo, di Alan e Madge, ed è evidente che lui ha rimodellato la sua intera infanzia, rimuovendo le liti e i problemi e inventandosi una vita familiare felice) ma allo stesso tempo ben scritto ed affascinante.

http://robertabookshelf.blogspot.it/2...

[Ineke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Een uitzonderlijk boek. Het is geschreven in 1976, maar het speelt in de jaren vijftig. Het beschrijft een episode in het leven van een nogal merkwaardig gezin, vader is vanwege de oorlog emotioneel uit balans, en vervalt van de ene stemming in de andere, moeder is vrijwel geheel op zichzelf gericht, betreurt haar huwelijk, omdat haar veelbelovende man failliet raakte en ze nu beneden haar stand moet leven. De kinderen, Alan van 17 en Madge van 15 zijn elkaars tegenpolen. Hij doet er alles aan om conflicten en ruzies te vermijden of te sussen en loopt voortdurend op zijn tenen, zij spreekt uit wat ze vindt en voelt en gaat haar eigen gang. Deze familiedynamiek wordt beschreven vanuit het gezichtspunt van Alan.
Tot zover een begrijpelijk plot. Maar Bainbridge wisselt drama en zwarte humor voortdurend af, zodat je steeds op het verkeerde been wordt gezet. Rob van Essen ziet dat als de reden dat het boek vooral vervreemding oproept. Dat heeft hij goed geanalyseerd. Gevoelsmatig kun je er geen toegang toe krijgen.
En dan omlijst Bainbridge het verhaal met een korte beschrijving van broer en zus na lange tijd, als moeder overleden is, en Alan inderdaad, zoals Madge al voorspelde, een ongevoelig, kortzichtig mannetje is geworden.
Ik vind dat de schrijfster een geweldig effect weet te bereiken, maar betreur het dat ik me emotioneel zo moeilijk kan verbinden met de personages. De harde werkelijkheid, dat begrijp ik, maar toch….

[Rob · Rating 3 out of 5]

Any novel with egg and chips depicted on the cover is surely worth a read but I found this to be one of the more inconsequential of Bainbridge's books that I have read so far - a seventh outing saw her return to the immediate post-war era explored in Harriet Said but the book is mainly notable for its depiction of low key young fogeyism. Having spent the weekend in a hotel in Lincoln and having leafed through one of those ridiculous 'county set' magazines aimed at 'Society' types, it left me wondering how in each era, we churn out new people who seem to have been born listening to classical music and wearing jodphurs - the main character here isn't one of these but his natural small c conservatism definitely holds him back from having a good time even if his sister's carousing with a German prisoner of war was unlikely to have been viewed as good behaviour at the time.

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

this was the first beryl bainbridge book I read, really really good-great characters, great style, funny, dark. I read some of her other books (i bet everything is good) but this one is the most accessible (for me at least!!) because it is short!, and doesn't have any far out obscure historical context. my fav. creepy brit, she reminds me of patricia highsmith!, only i feel pretty ok afterwards, and not too disturbed.

[Elaine Haby · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was billed as a vintage story laced with sadness, irony and wicked black humour. To me the sadness outweighed the irony and humour by a long shot. And the quote on cover by Hilary Mantel that this was 'one of the funniest books I have ever read' leaves me thinking that humour is indeed so different for each of us.
Maybe though I have been reading too many Beryl Bainbridge novels in a row. I have thoroughly enjoyed my other readings of hers.

[zespri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another clever novel by Beryl Bainbridge. Short, snappy and loaded with quirky dialogue, we follow an english family in the aftermath of the second world war. Life in this house is definitely not quiet, and I suffered along with poor sensitive Alan as he tries to hold them together, at great cost to his own inner life.

[Steve White · Rating 4 out of 5]

A compact little book that explores a dysfunctional family in Blundel Sands after the war. I especally enjoyed it as I am from the same area and know the places described like the beach and the woods. The first time I have come across a novel set there.

[Jenn Cavanaugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excruciatingly tightly woven/wound series of relational misses and near-misses that pass for familial connection relayed in claustrophobic detail by the family member farthest from comprehension. The suffocating closeness would make you want to run barefoot through a minefield at night, too.

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just couldn't care enough about the characters to finish this one.

[Malcolm]

Very dark, very quirky, very unsettling, very Bainbridge

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A brilliant snapshot of a middle-class English family after World War Two. Well-developed characters and great portrayal of their surroundings. Recommended.

[Christine · Rating 1 out of 5]

Boring! I had no attachment to the characters and no interest in finishing this book.

[Lizzie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunningly great depiction of a dysfunctional family in grim post war Britain, from the point of view of the repressed and awkward teenage son.

[Susan]

Williston Library Book Sale (4th of July) 2012

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

What on earth did I just read? I’m sure this was very well written but I feel like there was so much going on in the story that wasn’t written - I’m sure I’ve missed out on lots of information that I was unable to read between the lines. Based mainly just after WWII, we meet Alan, a miserable, horrible teen boy. He’s brother to free-spirted yet manipulative 15 year old Madge who’s falling in love with a young German prisoner of war, who is able to wander around with her. She leaves the house at all hours for long stretches of time, presumably off to see her boyfriend. Her father is concerned but only until she’s back at home. Her brother is concerned, but only because he’s jealous of her free spirit and doesn’t want her upsetting her parents. Their parents are just odd. Dysfunctional, yes, but I’m not 100% certain how. They turn up the radio so the neighbors won’t hear them fight but we never really know what they’re fighting about. Do they like each other or not? It’s hard to tell. They’re struggling with financial difficulties but they seem to have more than they need. They live in a too-small house yet there are rooms the mother refuses to let anyone use. And then she goes off to the train station to sit in the waiting room to read her book in a warm, quiet space. Her husband is convinced she’s having an affair. But he won’t follow her. Or try to stop her. He’ll only go looking for her after she’s gone. And then there’s Alan’s relationship with his girlfriend, Janet. He only wants her when he doesn’t have her and then treats her like a pile of poo when she’s around. And she puts up with it!! It was just a strange story about strange people living mysterious lives and unable to communicate.

[A.K. Kulshreshth · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this very insightful interview, I found two things that explain this very odd but charming book about a dysfunctional family in a village in post-World War II England. Firstly, Beryl Bainbridge says that she doesn't really write fiction. Secondly, her novels are short, but she writes ten pages of text for every page that makes it into the final draft.

The result is a book like A Quiet Life, with its characters who seem to leap out of real life, though they are really quite strange in different ways, and its finely crafted, sparse prose.

Told through the eyes of a fifteen-year old boy, Alan, the story of the family could have been just that -- a bitter-funny account of how things go wrong when a successful businessman marries late in life, and then has his fortune wiped out after the Great Depression, leaving him with a wife who is much younger, and who married him for money that has melted away.. Listening to the interview will make it clear that this book is very autobiographical.

It took me some reflection to get to what might be the point of the book. In the end, Alan is a middle-aged man returning to his wide after meeting his sister, one of the main characters in the book. He reflects about his wife: "It wasn’t her fault. She’d had an unhappy childhood. She didn’t come from a close family, not like him and Madge." . If only we could not care what others think...