'Extremely lively' TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT

'A work of art' SCOTSMAN

'Genius' SUNDAY TIMES

An old snapshot shows a group of friends lounging in the sunshine, on a weekend in the country at the invitation of bearded, satyric Claude and his wife Julia. The girl in the centre is dreamy Lily, whose latest failed love affair forms the purpose of the weekend, as Lily's friends set out to help her ensnare an unwitting father for her unborn child. Next to her is Norman, a Marxist romantic hell-bent on seducing his milk-white hostess; behind them is old, persecuted Shebah; and slightly apart, the young man on whom all hopes are pinned: quiet, pleasant Edward.

Told through the fractured narratives of Claude, Lily, Shebah and Norman, in Beryl Bainbridge's first published novel a darkly comic weekend of friendship and failure unravels.

The classic first novel that acclaimed author Beryl Bainbridge ever had published, in 1967, A Weekend with Claude is a wickedly funny portrait of frustrated middle-class lives.

About the Author
Beryl Bainbridge (1932-2010) wrote eighteen novels, two travel books and five plays for stage and television. Five of her novels were shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Every Man for Himself and Injury Time won the Whitbread Prize, The Bottle Factory Outing won the Guardian Fiction Prize and Master Georgie won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Four of her novels including An Awfully Big Adventure were adapted for film. In 2011, Bainbridge was honoured posthumously with a special Best of Beryl Man Booker Prize in recognition of her outstanding career. Her final novel, The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress, was published in 2011.

Reviews
It is her skewed and deadly grasp of the immediate that makes Bainbridge's work unique. Formerly an actress, she has an uncanny ear for dialogue, a perfect sense of timing and a terse, elliptical narrative style that combine to create a dramatic, or cinematic, tension * New York Times *
Extremely lively and incisive entertainment * Times Literary Supplement *
[Bainbridge's] genius lies in the comic evocation of the mundane life against which her characters are in revolt * Sunday Times *
A riotous, macabre imagination * Daily Telegraph *
Delicious . . . Very elegant and pleasing . . . A work of art * Scotsman *
Extremely lively and incisive entertainment * Times Literary Supplement *
Her genius lies in the comic evocation of the mundane life against which her characters are in perpetual and ineffectual revolt * Sunday Times *
Delicious . . . very elegant and pleasing . . . A work of art * Scotsman *



Book Information
ISBN 9781844088546
Author Beryl Bainbridge
Format Paperback
Page Count 160
Imprint Virago Press Ltd
Publisher Little, Brown Book Group
Weight(grams) 134g
Dimensions(mm) 195mm * 128mm * 11mm