Stanley Middleton Holiday (1974)

Stanley Middleton was jointly awarded the Booker Prize in 1974 with Nadine Gordimer.  Middleton’s Holiday is, on the face of it, a novel about a man who goes to a British seaside town for a week-long holiday.  In reality, education lecturer Edwin Fisher is escaping from the death of his son and his crumbling marriage to grieving, volatile Meg.  Through a series of flashbacks, prompted by events during his holiday, the reader sees how Edwin first met Meg, their courtship and eventual marriage, the birth and subsequent death of their son and how all these events affect them both.

Fisher returns to the fictional seaside town of Bealthorpe, where he holidayed with his parents and sister as a child.  It portrays an image of the traditional British seaside holiday, and it presents an interesting contrast to perceptions of the British seaside today.  Fisher returns to Bealthorpe to find solace at a difficult point in his life, but instead finds that Bealthorpe has changed compared to how he remembers it; he seems restless and unable to settle to anything, betraying the underlying tensions affecting him.  Bumping into his parents-in-law, ostensibly by coincidence, doesn’t help matters.  As his week progresses, Fisher gets to know the other guests in his hotel better, punctuated by periodic meetings with his in-laws to try and heal the rift between himself and Meg.

Mention is made of overseas package holidays, which were already fashionable by the time Middleton wrote his novel.  The reader gets the feeling that Bealthorpe is on the edge of decline, a town on the edge of nowhere on England’s east coast.  He presents Fisher’s jaunts around the town and surrounding country almost like a documentary; Fisher is remarkably forward and strikes up conversation with many strangers, tourists and locals alike.  In all these conversations he reveals little of himself; he escapes from his own difficulties by allowing others to talk about themselves and the town.  Fisher’s escape is temporary however; as his stay comes to an end, he knows he must face up to his past in order to move on to the future.

Middleton’s novel is not as far-reaching in scope as other Booker winners have been and seems less impressive when compared to the works of Gordimer or Farrell that went before.  I found it enjoyable enough, but will be selling the book on; I doubt I will read it again.  If anyone wants it let me know!