The Bottle Factory Outing

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Shortlisted for the 1974 Booker Prize, and with a new introduction by A. K. Blakemore, a razor-sharp and mercilessly funny novel of friendship, class and desire.  

Freda and Brenda divide the bed they share with a barricade of books, then spend their days working side by side in an Italian-run wine-bottling factory. A picnic out at Windsor Park for the two women and their colleagues offers promise for Freda and terror for Brenda. Passions run high before coming to a brutal and startling end. With an unforgettably dark heart, The Bottle Factory Outing is laugh-out-loud funny, grubbily evocative and slyly weird, and is for fans of Muriel Spark, Anita Brookner and early Ian McEwan. 

First published by Duckworth in 1974

Published in the US by George Braziller in 1975

Published by Fontana in 1980

Published by Penguin in 1992

Published by Abacus in 2001

Forthcoming edition published by Daunt Books (UK)