A book that my mom bought on an audacious trip to Fopp, knowing little
about Beryl Bainbridge other than the fact that An Awfully Big Adventure is a hell of a good novel.
Despite not being of the same literary significance as An Awfully Big Adventure (although A Weekend with Claude also mentions the same
Peter Pan quote), this is a highly enjoyable novel, and one that would deserve
something better than a quick comment by the Daily Telegraph on its front cover.
A Weekend with Claude is what The
Big Chill would have been had the characters not really liked each other.
The multiple viewpoints, oddly enough for me (I’m really not a fan), work quite
wonderfully, and the shooting of Shebah is a great addition. I loved the chain
of mutual jealousies and mistrust in this circle of friends, although I kind of
wish that Edward – the only likeable character and the newest (and short-lived,
we presume) entry into the group – was given a chance to speak his mind, either
directly or indirectly, both by Bainbridge and by the people around him.
