I can remember in detail being hit by my first story one January morning in 1958. So begins literary legend Diana Athill in the preface to Midsummer Night in the Workhouse, a long-overdue collection of her short fiction, originally published in the 1950s to the 1970s. In unsentimental though often touching prose, Athills young women anticipate, enjoy, or just miss out on brief sexual encounters with men met on trains, at parties just about anywhere they can. A cheating wife, back with her boring husband, is wracked with agonizing love for the unavailable partner of her brief fling; a writer seeks inspiration at a writers retreat whilst avoiding the group seducers invitation; a wifes party flirtations propel her possessive husband into another womans bed; two fun-loving women face a sinister sexual assault during a Greek holiday; a teenager experiences enraptured detachment during her first kiss. Beautifully written, perceptive, touching, and funny, Midsummer Night in the Workhouse is Diana Athill at her best.
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