Author Description

"A man called Berg, who changed his name to Greb, came to a seaside town intending to kill his father...". "So begins Ann Quin's first novel. Against the backdrop of this gritty seaside town, an absurd and brutal plot develops involving three characters - Alistair Berg, his father, and their mutual mistress. In his attempt to kill his father, Berg mutilates a ventriloquist's dummy, almost falls victim to his father's mistaken sexual advances, and is relentlessly taunted by a group of tramps. Disturbing and at times startlingly comic, Berg chronicles the interrelations among these three characters as they circle one another in an escalating spiral of violence."--BOOK JACKET.