A Quiet Life (Masterplots II: Women’s Literature Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Beryl Bainbridge
- First Published: 1976
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Domestic realism
- Time of Work: Post-World War II
- Setting: Southport, England
- Principal Characters: Alan, Madge, Alan’s father, Alan’s mother, Janet Leyland, Aunt Nora
- Genres: Long fiction, Domestic realism
- Subjects: Maturation or coming of age, Values, Family or family life, Memory, Parents and children, Adolescence, Teenagers, Abused persons, Middle classes, 1940’s, Alienation, Emotions, England or English people
- Locales: Southport, England
Form and Content
Beryl Bainbridge’s novel A Quiet Life begins with middle-aged Alan waiting for his sister Madge to meet him to discuss their mother’s recent death and to take their mother’s ring. Madge refuses this momento of her mother, and Alan slips into a dramatic flashback of his adolescence, which makes up the bulk of the novel.
Alan’s flashback, which takes up eight chapters, portrays his selective memory about his family. Although he reveals the painful slights and emotional injuries incurred and endured by the four family members, there seems to...
[The entire page is 1958 words long]
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