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BergAuthor: Ann Quin British Literature Series December 2001 168 pages, 5.5 x 8.5 paperback, 1-56478-302-2 Retail Paperback Price: Our Paperback Price: $9.56 
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Book Description
"A man called Berg, who changed his name to Greb, came to a seaside town intending to kill his father. . . ."
So begins Ann Quin's first novel, which has been compared to the fiction of Samuel Beckett and Nathalie Sarraute. Against the backdrop of this gritty seaside town, an absurd and brutal plot develops involving three characters—Alistair Berg, his father, and their mutual mistress. In his attempt to kill his father, Berg mutilates a ventriloquist's dummy, almost falls victim to his father's mistaken sexual advances, and is relentlessly taunted by a group of tramps. Disturbing and at times startlingly comic, Berg chronicles the interrelations among these three characters as they circle one another in an escalating spiral of violence.
A member of a group of British avant-garde writers that included B. S. Johnson and Eva Figes, Ann Quin is one of the best kept secrets of British contemporary experimental writing. She published four novels before her death at the age of 37.
About the Author
| Ann Quin, one of the best kept secrets of British experimental writing, has garnered comparisons to such diverse writers as Samuel Beckett and Nathalie Sarraute. Before her death in 1973, she published four novels, including Berg and Passages. In 1964 she became the first female recipient of the D. H. Lawrence Fellowship which allowed her to travel to the U.S., a trip that provided the basis for Tripticks. |
Praise
"A remarkable first novel. . . . Miss Quin has undoubtedly been influenced by such French novelists as Nathalie Sarraute and by the nouvelle vague movement in the cinema. But Berg is something of a breakthrough in the sense that, for the first time, these techniques have been used to produce a novel that is both wholly English in atmosphere and quite unpretentious."—Times Literary Supplement"I think Berg is an excellent answer to all those who think reading novels is a waste of time."—Books & Bookmen
"This is a first novel written in the new mode, mingling past and present. . . . The author builds up a fluid tension that is remarkable."—Harper's
"If you don't read it then you're not interested in the present and possible future of the English novel."—Scotsman
"A marvelously warped book . . . ."—New York Times
"The style is eclectic enough to remind the reader of the New Wave, Beckett, Pinter, and Freud with a headache."—Library Journal
"A vividly intense and almost palpably immediate work of imagination."—Irish Times
"Told in a jerky, abrupt, appropriately fragmentary manner, making use of effective, horrid detail. Technically, and imaginatively, it's rather admirable, even where it repels."—Kirkus