{"product_id":"an-awfully-big-adventure-9781961341920","title":"An Awfully Big Adventure","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA blackly comic story of the secrets, sex, and violence behind the curtain of a repertory theater's postwar production of \u003ci\u003ePeter Pan\u003c\/i\u003e: its \"close observation and hilarity are underlain by a sense of tragedy as deep as any in fiction.\" (\u003ci\u003eThe Times)\u003c\/i\u003e)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLiverpool, 1950. Against the grimy backdrop of the gray postwar city, a shabby, scandal-steeped repertory theater company rehearses for their Christmas performance of Peter Pan. Treading the boards for the first time is sixteen-year-old Stella Bradshaw, ambitious, idealistic, and still overwhelmingly innocent. She falls hard for the rakish, monocled director, Meredith Potter, but, unable to attract his attentions--and not understanding why he's spending quite so much time with their male colleagues--she turns to another colleague to initiate her into the ways of love. Enter the celebrated P. L. O'Hara, a dashing leading man who's nursing secrets of his own. When the curtain is up, fantastical entertainment abounds, but backstage a very different drama is playing out: a pitch-black comedy of indiscretion, intrigue, and eventual tragedy.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eShortlisted for the Booker Prize, and dusted with that magical \"air of Pinteresque menace and Sparkian malice [that] lingers around the margins of [all of Beryl Bainbridge's] fiction,\" (Michiko Kakutani, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e), \u003ci\u003eAn Awfully Big Adventure\u003c\/i\u003e is one of the author's very best--and best-loved--novels.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Beryl Bainbridge\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e McNally Editions\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 03\/10\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 216\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.60lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.40h x 5.00w x 0.90d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781961341920\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eYiyun Li\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003eis the author of several works of fiction, including most recently \u003ci\u003eWednesday's Child\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Book of Goose\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eWhere Reasons End\u003c\/i\u003e, and the memoirs \u003ci\u003eThings in Nature Merely Grow\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eDear Friend\u003c\/i\u003e, from \u003ci\u003eMy Life I Write to You in Your Life\u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003e.\u003c\/i\u003e She is the recipient of many awards, including a PEN\/Faulkner Award, a PEN\/Malamud Award, a PEN\/Hemingway Award, a PEN\/Jean Stein Book Award, a MacArthur Fellowship, and a Windham-Campbell Prize, and she was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Her work has appeared in \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eA Public Space\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Best American Short Stories\u003c\/i\u003e, and The PEN\/O. Henry Prize Stories, among other publications. She teaches at Princeton University and lives in Princeton, New Jersey.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"booksdeli.com","offers":[{"title":"Beryl Bainbridge \/ Paperback \/ English","offer_id":47733821472925,"sku":"9781961341920","price":38.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0619\/5648\/9373\/files\/img_c86b8ad8-45b1-4383-974b-1300accb121a.jpg?v=1773736445","url":"https:\/\/booksdeli.com\/products\/an-awfully-big-adventure-9781961341920","provider":"booksdeli.com","version":"1.0","type":"link"}