The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress

The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress

by Beryl Bainbridge (Author)

Synopsis

In the rainswept summer of 1968, Rose sets off for the United States from Kentish Town to meet a man she knows as Washington Harold, in her suitcase a polka-dot dress and a one-way ticket. In a country rocked by the assassination of Martin Luther King and a rising groundswell of violence, they are to join forces in search of the charismatic and elusive Dr Wheeler - oracle, guru and redeemer - whom Rose credits with rescuing her from a terrible childhood, and against whom Harold nurses a silent grudge.

As they trail their quarry, zigzagging through America in a camper van, the odd couple - Rose, damaged child of grey postwar Britain, and nervous, obsessive, driven Harold - encounter a ragged counter-cultural army of Wheeler's acolytes, eddying among dangerous currents of obscure dissent and rage. But somewhere in the wide American darkness, Dr Wheeler is waiting.

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More Information

Format: Hardcover
Pages: 208
Publisher: Little, Brown & Company
Published: 26 May 2011

ISBN 10: 0316728489
ISBN 13: 9780316728485
Book Overview: * Review and feature coverage * Submitted for trade promotions * Bound proofs

Media Reviews
Ranks among the finest of Bainbridge's fine works of fiction . . . Sombre, terrifying and hilarious -- Paul Bailey * Independent *
A tour de force . . . the comedy is marvellously black -- Mark Bostridge * Financial Times *
The Girl in the Polka-dot Dress is very gripping, very funny and deeply mysterious . . . Washington Harold is a superbly self-preoccupied monster, one of Bainbridge's best creations -- A. N. Wilson * Spectator *
Blazes with Bainbridge's unique talent . . . The Girl in the Polka-dot Dress is a superb and memorable work of fiction -- Melvyn Bragg * Observer *
Author Bio
Beryl Bainbridge wrote seventeen novels, two travel books and five plays for stage and television, she was shortlisted for the Booker Prize five times, and won literary awards including the Whitbread Prize and the Author of the Year Award at the British Book Awards. She died in July 2010.