A Quiet Life [Paperback]

Beryl Bainbridge (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 24, 1999

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.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Told largely in flashback, Bainbridge's low-key novel follows the relentless lives of a British family toward the end of World War II. The parents, son, and daughter employ their own methods to escape the reality of their monotonous existences. (LJ 3/1/77)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

This early Bainbridge novel has all her hallmarks - a murderously wry insight into hypocrisy and self-delusion balanced by an unsentimental understanding of the larger picture which renders the sneaking and creeping pitiful rather than menacing. Adept at using large historical events as a springboard into fictional reconstruction, Bainbridge keeps her attention focused on a stiflingly small canvas, her prose as restrained as the lives it dissects. Unremitting domestic strife and the suffocating struggle to uphold the manners of shabby genteel poverty define the lives of a family in the 1950s. The novel fades towards the end but this is still an unforgettable read. (Kirkus UK)

Her last novel, Sweet William (1976), began the swing away from the elements of surreptitious surprise which introduced this writer from the beginning as an accomplished teller of horror stories. Predictable stories to a degree, since they were so well founded in commonplace experience. This is slighter than Sweet William and as quiet as its title, unless you listen to the underside of what's being said. Between the cursory interchange of the first chapter and the ironic coda of the last, Bainbridge fills in the WW II years of Alan and Madge, nearly grown children of a descending middle-class family. Father has fallen on hard times - he also has bad "turns" everyone overlooks. Mother, no longer mothering, spends her evenings with her "fancy man," while Madge is out in the dunes with a German prisoner of war. Home gets short shrift - so does Father whose last spell is fatal and unattended. . . . This is the most unassuming of writers, the most careful in the choice of the right word and the right detail to complete a portrait of a family imperceptibly falling away. It's as plain as that black pudding Father perhaps should not have eaten, but how remarkably Beryl Bainbridge raises familiarity to the plateau of excellence. (Kirkus Reviews) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf (February 24, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 078670635X
• ISBN-13: 978-0786706358
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,929,635 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great book, December 6, 2001

By 

Zack Handlen (Lewiston, ME United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Quiet Life (Paperback)

This was my first exposure to Beryl Bainbridge; a friend reccommended another of her books to me, and this was the first one I could find in the library, so I picked it up. I've read a few more since then, and while this isn't her best book, it is still a solid read, moving, disturbing, and darkly comic by turns. There's not a whole lot of plot, but there is a story that pulls you along, and the characters are sketched out brilliantly. I can't remember the last time I read something that was quite this disturbing without ever being blatantly violent or horrorific; it's more about the evils people do to themselves and others in the real world than anything. I wouldn't necessarily suggest starting with this book if you're new to the author; but then, I did, and I'm a huge fan. Definitely worth a look.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Quiet, indeed!, November 18, 2010

By 

Roger "Tryathlete" (USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A Quiet Life (Paperback)

Yes, a very very quiet life. Set in post WW II England. Interesting, well written but not a lot happening. Worth reading, I guess just for the exposure to the genre.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Facts on "A Quiet Life", February 16, 2004

By 

Eric Lin (Taiwan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Quiet Life (Hardcover)

The life of a family consisting of two parents, Joe and Connie, and their two children, Madge and Alan is shown in this book by Beryl Bainbridge. A Quiet Life describes the ups and downs of the family after WWII. Joe once had a great business, but after some events in the war, he is now bankrupt and is listening to the `wireless', as they called it (radio in our days). Connie, a woman who married Joe years ago because of his wealth, is now a very strict lady who reads novels at the train station alone every night, while during the day, she drinks tea. The daughter, Madge, is a girl who walks along the mine-filled seaside every night. She is a girl who is trusted by her mother, who often believes the lies of Madge, making her able to get away from the troubles she has done. Lastly, the main character is Alan, who is a 17 year old teenager who falls in love with Janet, another girl in his school.
The main idea of the book is shown in the title, A Quiet Life, because it is about Alan, trying to have his own life different from the kind he grew up in. Why he wants his own life is because there is a lot of chaos going on around the house that he has to put up with and try to live through them everyday. Starting with Alan and Madge meeting each other inside the café, a shift is made to the actual life these two children grew up in. With his father constantly getting upset with the family and his leftover wealth, things inside the house are often thrown around, while the two children always try to get out of the scene. During the story, Alan often argues with his sister about going to see a German P.O.W and almost causing a disaster for the family. These are only some of the problems that occurred within this spoiled family. This book has really grabbed my attention once I started reading it, because the plot is based on real life problems within a family.