Famous writers, writing: Beryl Bainbridge

[photo: Monire Childs]

“I don’t know why everybody doesn’t write because everybody talks.”

So says an author who reached the very top of her profession, but her quote is misleading. It implies everyone can write, and ignores the years she spent working on her craft, perfecting it. We can all admire the skill of a gymnast dance on the beam or a concert pianist play Rachmaninov, but we know we could not do it ourselves no matter how much we tried.

Beryl Bainbridge was shortlisted five times for the Booker Prize but never won, until she was presented with a one-off award, the Man Booker Best of Beryl, created especially to honour her five shortlisted novels. They are:-
1973 The Dressmaker
1974 The Bottle Factory Outing
1996 An Awfully Big Adventure
1998 Every Man for Himself
2000 Master Georgie

My favourite Bainbridge novel? The Birthday Boys, a fictional account…