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Berg by Ann Quinn: book review





Berg (1964, edition 2001) is set in the seaside town of Brighton, England, in the 1960s.

Hair restorer Alistair Berg decides to kill the man who left him and his mother to move in with another woman. The man, of course, is his father. 

He calls himself Alistair Greb when he comes to Brighton to find his father, so as not to reveal his true identity. ‘Why should it come to this, an isolated day when thought is nearly as heavy as feeling...?’

This is a novel about Alistair’s plot to kill his father. Alistair is 33 years old, and his father is about sixty. The problem is that he and his father share the same love—the same woman—Judith. Alistair must kill his rival. 

Mentally, Alistair is in his head, torn between rationality and an insane hatred and jealousy. His internal monologue and his mother’s letters drive him crazy. Is he really crazy? His father screwed up his childhood, and now … well, now, this just has to stop. Permanently. 

The first sentence of this short novel is brilliant. What follows is good, but not of the intrigue and intensity of the first line. This novel is dark, broody, mordant, and atmospheric, where the internal world blends seamlessly with the external world. It is also experimental and at times, impenetrable. And miserable—the miserable life of missed opportunities and pitiable people. But the ending is great.  







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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author  of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce  (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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