After Bathing at Baxter's

Description

Dorfman likes watching the planes take off towards a wider world than his - and is afraid of flying. Fuchs dreams of going to England to escape from pornography - and never does. In 1960s Norfolk a boy is introduced to the world of art - and is repulsed by the bohemian life. When Elvis dies his stand-in not only loses his job but also his raison d'etre. After Bathing At Baxter's is a wonderful and sharply written collection of short stories about dreams of leaving, about the hopes of escaping mediocrity and the pain of failure. Wryly funny, often touching, they prove D. J. Taylor a master of the short story. `A compelling collection of short stories. . . After Bathing At Baxter's is tough, sentimental, sad and funny: this is "dirty realism" with a sense of humour and heart' Shena MacKay `Good short-story writers are rarer than good novelists, which makes the appearance of one as good as Taylor all the more welcome' Allan Massie

D.J. Taylor was born in 1960, went to Norwich School and St John's College, Oxford, and is the author of two acclaimed biographies, Thackery (1999), and Orwell: The Life, which won the Whitbread Biography Prize in 2003. He has written nine novels, the most recent being Derby Day (2011, longisted for the Man Booker Prize), At the Chime of a City Clock (2010), Ask Alice (2009) and Kept: A Victorian Mystery (2006). David is also well known as a critic and reviewer, and his other books include A Vain Conceit: British Fiction in the 1980s (1989) and After the War: the Novel and England since 1945 (1993). His journalism appears in the Independent and the Independent on Sunday, the Guardian, the Tablet, the Spectator, the New Statesman and, anonymously, in Private Eye. He is married to the novelist Rachel Hore. They have three sons and live in Norwich, UK.