Winter Garden
1980
When quiet, reliable lawyer Douglas Ashburner begins an extra-marital affair with Nina, a bossy, temperamental artist with a penchant for risky sex, he finds it all a terrible strain.
Needing a break, he does not head off on the fishing holiday he tells his wife is the plan. Instead, he flies to Moscow with Nina, as a guest of the Soviet Artists Union. It’s not long before Ashburner regrets his decision: he promptly loses his luggage, the food is dreadful, he receives a baffling phone call from someone claiming to be his brother. When Nina slips out to lunch and never returns, things go from bad to disastrous to downright hallucinatory.
Winter Garden is ripe with scathing wit, eccentric characters and a richly morbid atmosphere, and is for fans of Kingsley Amis.
First published by Duckworth in 1980
Published by George Braziller (US) in 1981
Published by Flamingo in 1985
Published by Penguin in 1991
Forthcoming edition published by Daunt Books
Beryl Bainbridge's Winter Garden