Birthday
A Novel
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
The long-anticipated sequel to Alan Sillitoe's bestselling classic 1950s novel Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
Arthur and Brian Seaton are heading back to their hometown, Nottingham, some forty-odd years after the close of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. The brothers plan to surprise Brian's first love, Jenny Tuxford, on her seventieth birthday. Arthur, the notorious lothario, still has some of his old spark, but it has been hampered by domestic life and his wife's recent cancer diagnosis. Meanwhile, Brian, now a failed novelist but successful television writer living in London, is struggling with dissatisfaction and emotional regrets. He and Jenny had fooled around in their teenage years—a lot of heavy petting through complicated clothing on her parents' settee—but Jenny ended up marrying someone else. Now that Jenny's husband has passed away, will sparks fly between her and Brian again?
It is clear that the Nottingham of their youth no longer exists. The trams are now buses; the collieries and ironmongers have been replaced by cell phone shops and halal grocers; new high-rise apartments have sprung up; and the idle young hang around the city pubs whining about the dole.
Where Saturday Night and Sunday Morning portrayed the chaotic energy of youth, Birthday is an investigation of the other end of the spectrum: the contemplation of missed chances and terminal decline, and the awareness that "death's blackout could descend at any minute."
This ebook features an illustrated biography of Alan Sillitoe including rare images from the author's estate.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Sillitoe returns to the scene of his initial literary success in his latest effort, a nostalgic follow-up to his '50s debut novel, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. The protagonist of that tale, Arthur Seaton, still has some of his old fire, as grief intrudes on his life when he learns that his wife, Avril, is about to die of cancer. Arthur's troubles become a subplot this time around, though, as Sillitoe revisits the romance between Arthur's brother, Brian, and his old flame, Jenny Tuxford, whose disabled husband has finally died after an industrial accident forced him to spend the second half of his life in a wheelchair. The event that brings them together is Jenny's birthday party, where to the surprise of neither, sparks fly instantly despite the passage of the years. But Sillitoe's literary agenda consists of more than geriatric romance as he jumps back and forth in time, exploring Arthur's frustration with the lawlessness that has overtaken his community and Brian's dissatisfactions as a would-be novelist who wound up making excellent money as a TV sitcom writer. Brian and Jenny's eventual date is somewhat anticlimactic, although Sillitoe does provide some intriguing thoughts on how the passage of time has changed their perception of the affair, as the two characters consider reuniting. Sillitoe is no longer the aggressive, take-no-prisoners writer who brought these characters to life so provocatively half a century ago, but his craftsmanship remains high and his insights are always sharp. He does meander some, but in this novel, the literary journey more than justifies the occasional side trip.
