Understanding Beryl Bainbridge

In this introduction to prolific British novelist Beryl Bainbridge, Grubisic provides a biographical sketch of the writer, discussion of her motivations and techniques, and a detailed survey of her fiction that places the works in the traditions of British black comedy, social novels, and historical fiction. Emerging on the literary scene in the 1970s with widely praised novels such as The Dressmaker, The Bottle Factory Outing, Sweet William, A Quiet Life, and Injury Time, Bainbridge quickly established a reputation for her keen observations of social dysfunction and her darkly comic tone. In approaching her works, Grubisic maps Bainbridges movement from social to historical novels, beginning with the comic historicism of Young Adolf and continuing to her most recent fiction, The Birthday Boys, Every Man for Himself, Master Georgie, and According to Queeney.