Holiday

Stanley Middleton’s prize-winning novel is both a precisely observed portrait of English provincial life and a moving exploration of grief and regret."We need Stanley Middleton to remind us what the novel is about. Holiday is vintage Middleton... One has to look at nineteenth-century writing for comparable storytelling." - Sunday TimesEdwin Fisher is at the seaside, but this is no normal beach holiday. To escape the death of his son and the death-throes of his marriage, he has retreated to a place where he had once known the unqualified happiness of childhood. But as painful memories rise unbidden and uncontrolled, Edwin must confront each in turn – realising that without a past there can be no future."At first glance, or even at second, Stanley Middleton's world is easily recognizable... The excellence of art, for Middleton, is an exact vision of real things as they are. And because he is himself so exact an observer, his world at third glance can seem strange and disturbing or newly and brilliantly lit with colour." - A.S. ByattStanley Middleton was born in Bulwell, Nottinghamshire. He published his first novel, A Short Answer, in 1958. Middleton went on to publish 45 novels in a career spanning 50 years. He was joint winner of the Booker Prize in 1974, with Holiday. THE BOOKER PRIZE-WINNING NOVEL 2019 marked the centenary of Stanley Middleton's birth. Holiday , winner of the 1974 Booker Prize, remains the most celebrated and popular novel from 'the Chekhov of suburbia'. Edwin Fisher has fled to a seaside resort of his childhood past to try to come to terms with the death of his baby son and the collapse of his marriage to Meg. On this strange and lonely holiday, as he seeks to understand what went wrong, Edwin must find somea way to think about what he has been and decide upon where he can go next. ______________________________________ 'At first glance, or even at second, Stanley Middleton's world is easily recognizable... The excellence of art, for Middleton, is an exact vision of real things as they are. And because he is himself so exact an observer, his world at third glance can seem strange and disturbing or newly and brilliantly lit with colour.' A.S. Byatt 'We need Stanley Middleton to remind us what the novel is about. Holiday is vintage Middleton... One has to look at nineteenth-century writing for comparable storytelling.' Sunday Times The Booker Prize-winning novel from 'the Chekhov of suburbia', Stanley Middleton. Rejacketed and republished by Windmill for the anniversary of its 1974 win. Edwin Fisher has fled to a seaside resort of his childhood past to try to come to terms with the death of his baby son and the collapse of his marriage to Meg. On this strange and lonely holiday, as he seeks to understand what went wrong, Edwin must find somea way to think about what he has been and decide upon where he can go next. 'At first glance, or even at second, Stanley Middleton's world is easily recognizable... The excellence of art, for Middleton, is an exact vision of real things as they are. And because he is himself so exact an observer, his world at third glance can seem strange and disturbing or newly and brilliantly lit with colour.' A.S. Byatt We need Stanley Middleton to remind us what the novel is about. Holiday is vintage Middleton... One has to look at nineteenth-century writing for comparable storytelling. Sunday Times MAN BOOKER PRIZE 1974. Edwin Fisher is on holiday at the English seaside but this revisiting of childhood haunts is no ordinary holiday. Edwin is seeking to understand the failure of his marriage to Meg, but it turns out that her parents are staying at the same resort whether by accident or design and are keen to patch up the relationship. As the past and his enigmatic wife loom larger, deeper truths emerge and the perspective shifts in unexpected ways