{"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\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e McNally Editions\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 03\/10\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781961341920\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 216","brand":"Beryl Bainbridge","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52161383170229,"sku":"9781961341920","price":16.15,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0473\/0804\/6492\/files\/img_3e36795b-f30c-4776-bb1b-7068577ae96d.jpg?v=1768318200","url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/an-awfully-big-adventure-9781961341920","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}