Harriet Said...

Beryl Bainbridge, Linda Grant

From Shelf: Virago Modern Classics Bookclub 2021-2023

The classic first novel from acclaimed, Man Booker Prize-winning author Beryl Bainbridge, Harriet Said ... is a dark and gripping story of adolescent transgression set in a 1950s seaside resort.

'Harriet Said is a highly plotted horror tale that turns the "Obstinate Questionings" of puberty into deadly weapons' NEW YORK TIMES 'An extremely original and disconcerting story' DAILY TELEGRAPH 'A sharp, chilling novel . . . The ending has real shock effect' SUNDAY TIMES A girl returns from boarding school to her sleepy Merseyside hometown and waits to be reunited with her childhood friend, Harriet, chief architect of all their past mischief. She roams listlessly along the shoreline and the woods still pitted with wartime trenches and encounters 'the Tsar' - almost old, unhappily married, both dangerously fascinating and repulsive.Pretty, malevolent Harriet finally arrives - and over the course of the long holidays draws her friend into a scheme to beguile then humiliate the Tsar, with disastrous, shocking consequences.A gripping portrayal of adolescent transgression, Beryl Bainbridge's classic first novel remains as subversive today as when it was written.