In the rainswept summer of 1968, Rose sets off for the United States from Kentish Town to meet a man she knows as Washington Harold, in her suitcase a polka-dot dress and a one-way ticket. In a country rocked by the assassination of Martin Luther King and a rising groundswell of violence, they are to join forces in search of the charismatic and elusive Dr Wheeler - oracle, guru and redeemer - whom Rose credits with rescuing her from a terrible childhood, and against whom Harold nurses a silent grudge. As they trail their quarry, zigzagging through America in a camper van, the odd couple - Rose, damaged child of grey postwar Britain, and nervous, obsessive, driven Harold - encounter a ragged counter-cultural army of Wheeler's acolytes, eddying among dangerous currents of obscure dissent and rage. But somewhere in the wide American darkness, Dr Wheeler is waiting.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
Praise for ACCORDING TO QUEENEY: 'A stellar literary event ... written with panache and an enviable economy' Margaret Atwood * 'This is a small, wise book of small prose miracles ... It is a larger miracle in this way: It makes us feel we see Johnson and his friends in unexpected and unfamiliar ways which are nevertheless convincing and authentic. I did not think anyone could do this, and still have no idea how Bainbridge pulled it off' Andrew Marr, Daily Telegraph
About the Author
Beryl Bainbridge wrote seventeen novels, two travel books and five plays for stage and television, she was shortlisted for the Booker Prize five times, and won literary awards including the Whitbread Prize and the Author of the Year Award at the British Book Awards. She died in July 2010.
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14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The last unfinished work,
This review is from: The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress. by Beryl Bainbridge (Hardcover)
The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress was the book that Beryl Bainbridge was in the process of writing at the time of her death in July 2010. Published posthumously, without any additional material added, the novel does seem to be largely complete, even if it ends somewhat abruptly and does have something of an unfinished feel to it. There are however a number of elements in the book and some intriguing characterisation that do come together to certainly warrant the publication of the author's final work.
Although not approached directly, the question of parental neglect, abuse and childhood suffering comes up a lot in The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress, particularly in relation to the consequences it has on people in later life. It's certainly features in the past of the two main characters, an American known as Washington Harold and a thirty-year old English woman called Rose, an unlikely couple who team-up together for a trip across the USA - from Baltimore to Chicago and ultimately down to Los Angeles - on the trail of the elusive Dr. Wheeler, a man who features significantly in both their pasts. What is intriguing about the trip across the USA is that it is set in the summer of 1968, during a significant period in American history. The assassinations of JFK and Martin Luther King are still fresh in the mind of a nation that is torn between the past and an uncertain modern world, with firmly held beliefs and strong divisions among them. As Rose and Harold make their road trip across the country, the nature of this uncertainty is reflected in the nature of the people they encounter and in a series of strange violent events that they find themselves witness to and caught up in. Moving towards personal goals of their own, impelled by events in their own pasts, one inevitably wonders about the events and the "childhood" trauma that has placed America in such a volatile position. Inspired by a real-life incident that only really becomes clear by the time you get to come towards the end of the book (for which reason I won't mention it here), the implications are all there, if frustratingly not fully explored in the unfinished work. There is enough here however for the reader to draw their own conclusions and speculate on how the book might have been completed (there is little to indicate what stage of the writing of the book was at, but it seems to me to be about a 100 pages short). None of this however takes away from the intriguing story that Bainbridge has detailed and seen nearly through to its conclusion, but perhaps just gives it an even more mysterious and ambiguous edge.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"Unless one accepted that suffering was the direct and immediate object of life, existence was futile.",
By
This review is from: The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress (Mass Market Paperback)
When she died in July, 2010, Beryl Bainbridge, Dame Commander of the British Empire, had been working for the preceding six months on this novel, The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress. Nearly completed at the time of her death, this novel is her twentieth, including five which were nominated for the Booker Prize and two (Injury Time in 1977 and Every Man for Himself in 1996) which won Whitbread Awards. Despite the literary honors, Bainbridge has always been a remarkably accessible author with a mordant wit, a sense of the absurdity of life, a darkly comic approach to her offbeat characters, and an undercurrent of violence which springs to life in unexpected ways.
Set in June, 1968, just before the death of Robert F. Kennedy, this novel opens with Harold Grasse greeting Rose, whom he regards as "Wheeler's woman," at the airport in Baltimore. Rose has come to the United States from Scotland to try to reconnect with "Dr. Wheeler," who played an important role in helping her to deal with her miserable childhood. The mysterious Dr. Wheeler is working on the campaign of Robert F. Kennedy for President, and he is traveling the country, so Harold Grasse has been assigned the task of greeting Rose. Unbeknownst to Rose or some of the other characters, all of whom also seem to know Wheeler, Harold has his own reasons for wanting to find Wheeler. With the point of view alternating between Rose and Harold, who have nothing in common except their interest in Wheeler, the author shows their complete lack of connection on all levels. Rose is "slack," a young woman who does not bathe or wash her hair often enough to suit the fastidious Harold, a woman with little education and even less intellectual curiosity. She sometimes makes racially insensitive remarks and shows little understanding of the political scene (including the Vietnam War, the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, and the death of John F. Kenndy). Starting on the East Coast, the two travel by camper to the West Coast to try to catch up with Dr. Wheeler. The reader learns much about Rose through her internal monologues which often run parallel to important conversations by other characters, her subject matter decidedly personal and often involving examples of her abuse by her family, while the other characters are discussing major events, such as insights into the death of Martin Luther King. For years Rose has sought religious explanations for the accidents of history, hoping for full answers which require little thought. Originally a Protestant, she became a Catholic convert as a teenager, then gave that up. She and Harold talk with a rural monsignor on his way to the funeral of a soldier killed in Vietnam, befriend a lawyer who has just had a mystical experience in which he faced the Judgment Seat, and attend a séance with a woman who is a theosophist. A woman near Santa Ana has found her "calling" in nature: "[Their hostess] cooked them lunch, the ingredients home-grown, even the chicken. The birds, she trumpeted, were her pride and joy, and she never allowed anyone but herself to wring their necks." Sudden death and violence among the people Rose, Harold, and their acquaintances meet is common. Several characters have near death experiences, and a couple of bodies materialize during their trip. Filled with darkness, the novel is still strangely humorous, and the characters are constant sources of surprise. Though the ending does not feel quite finished and the thematic development is still a bit loose, the book is a memorable finale to Bainbridge's great writing career. Mary Whipple
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An American Nightmare,
By
This review is from: The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress (Mass Market Paperback)
The late Beryl Bainbridge, who died in 2010, is better known in Britain than over here. The winner of the Whitbread Award, and five times shortlisted for the Booker Prize, she was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 2000, joining AS Byatt and preceding Margaret Drabble. She published sixteen novels over the course of her life, and was working on her seventeenth, THE GIRL IN THE POLKA DOT DRESS at the time of her death. Cast in a clear trajectory heading for an unmistakable conclusion, it does not feel unfinished, though the enigmatic compression which I gather is typical of all her books may perhaps be a little more enigmatic here than usual.
This is a road trip novel, reflecting a journey across America that Bainbridge herself made in 1968, but this is a nightmare America where nothing comes quite into focus. A young Englishwoman named Rose, a dental receptionist, arrives from London with a few items in a suitcase and an absurdly small amount of money. Her ticket has been paid for by a man she knows as Washington Harold, who obviously expects a gratifying holiday liaison. But Rose is not as he expected, either in appearance or behavior. She has come to America to reconnect with someone referred to only as Dr. Wheeler, who had somehow been very important to Rose during her adolescence. Harold, it appears, also wants to find Wheeler, though for very different motives which he keeps hidden at first. And Wheeler himself is elusive, both in character and location. At times he seems some kind of preacher or guru; at times a political operative; sometimes even a revolutionary. He never stays in one place for very long. Rose and Harold's search, which begins in a Baltimore still seething from the race riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King, will take them across the country in a camper to end in Los Angeles on the day that Robert Kennedy is shot. Despite the clarity of its overall arch, the book is full of mystery, ambiguity, and random brushes with violence. We do learn a little more about Rose who, despite her flirtations with religion, is not quite as innocent as she might appear. And as Harold drops in on former friends, we find out a little more about why he is so determined to track down the mysterious Dr. Wheeler. But nothing is ever entirely clear; none of the American characters, for instance, can be placed unambiguously as to socio-economic status, perhaps because Rose lacks the context in which to do so. The trip also reflects Rose's naive disorientation, starting with her jet lag, and taking her through diners, campsites, and deserts; the nightmare impressions are perfect, but the details do not always connect. Rose's brushes with bank robbery and murder seem the stuff of B movies. Were Rose the only narrator, I would have pegged her as a highly impressionable one, and had no problem, but we see a lot of the story through Harold's eyes too. Had Bainbridge lived to see her last novel to publication, I would have accepted its confusion as a metaphor for an America too ready to cast itself in its own B movies, and in 1968 enmeshed in a national nightmare from which it has never fully woken. But so long there remains a slight doubt as to whether the author was truly in charge of these decisions all along the line, it undermines her deliberate use of uncertainty as a narrative device.
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