false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255911474m/5549850.jpg 5549850 1 In his more than eighty years, Francis Wyndham has published very little–one novella and two collections of stories–but it adds up to one of the most individual and compelling bodies of work by a contemporary English writer. As Alan Hollinghurst notes in his introduction to <i>The Complete Fiction</i>, Wyndham’s fiction stands in the tradition of social comedy that goes back through Henry James to Jane Austen, with this difference: Wyndham writes about the lives of privileged and even titled people, but he is drawn to outcasts and odd ducks, adolescents, lonely women, addicts, eccentrics, and idlers. The earliest stories here, gathered under the title <i>Out of the War</i>, are brilliant vignettes of deprivation and desire written during World War II, when Wyndham had been invalided out of the British army. <i>Mrs. Henderson</i>, by contrast, offers scrupulously observed tragicomic pictures of the vagaries of upper-class English family life. Finally, in the prizewinning short novel <i>The Other Garden</i>, a shy teenage boy living in the country strikes up an unlikely friendship with Kay, the thirty-something daughter of neighbors, sister to a famous actor, and black sheep of her family. Kay, with her whims and crazes and boyfriends, is unable to hold her own against her family’s disapproval, and the narrator watches with helpless fascination as her small but very real tragedy is played out against the background of the Second World War. 5720910 5 5 2009 The Complete Fiction of Francis Wyndham total:7|5:4|4:2|3:1|2:0|1:0| 7 31 20 3 5 0 false false Fri Oct 23 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 13 06:08:52 -0700 2009 Sun Oct 25 19:45:41 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Aug 28 18:56:56 -0700 2009 Fri Aug 28 19:02:49 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Wed Sep 02 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 20 13:16:32 -0700 2009 Wed Sep 02 06:49:55 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Thu Nov 19 11:38:09 -0800 2009 Thu Nov 19 11:38:09 -0800 2009 4 0 false false Mon Nov 23 18:51:09 -0800 2009 Sun Nov 15 17:15:02 -0800 2009 Sun Nov 15 17:15:02 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Sun Oct 11 07:37:10 -0700 2009 Sun Oct 11 07:37:10 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Thu Oct 08 00:01:19 -0700 2009 Thu Oct 08 00:01:19 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Fri Sep 25 15:50:23 -0700 2009 Fri Sep 25 15:50:23 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sun Aug 02 21:15:39 -0700 2009 Sun Aug 02 21:15:39 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Tue Jul 28 06:26:21 -0700 2009 Tue Jul 28 06:26:21 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Mon Jul 20 19:06:55 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 31 18:51:38 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Mon Jul 13 21:06:13 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 13 21:06:13 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sat Jul 11 23:10:32 -0700 2009 Sat Jul 11 23:10:32 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Wed Jul 01 17:14:24 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 01 17:14:38 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Wed Jun 24 20:38:23 -0700 2009 Wed Jun 24 20:38:23 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Mon Jun 15 11:53:41 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 13 05:55:10 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Wed May 27 14:50:23 -0700 2009 Wed May 27 14:50:23 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Sun May 17 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu May 14 19:32:38 -0700 2009 Mon May 18 04:52:24 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Tue May 12 15:24:00 -0700 2009 Tue May 12 15:24:00 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Tue Dec 09 07:25:26 -0800 2008 Tue Dec 09 07:25:29 -0800 2008 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=5549850