by David Storey
First published 1978
Colin Pasmore wakes up screaming every morning from the same nightmare. He runs an endless race, his legs pumping uselessly as every ordinary person in England passes him by. At nearly thirty, he has everything that should make a man happy. A loving wife. Healthy children. A steady teaching job. Yet he feels trapped by the very life others would envy. The walls of routine close in around him. Pasmore decides he needs an escape route. He rents a small room in London with one purpose in mind: to have an affair. But betraying his wife brings no relief from the weight pressing down on him. The room becomes another prison. His desperation deepens as he realizes that neither fidelity nor adultery can save him from the crushing burden of existence itself. Pasmore faces a terrible question: whether any life, even one filled with blessings, justifies the effort of living it.
Genres: literary-fiction, 20th-century, contemporary, adult-fiction
Vibes: dark, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: existential-crisis, unreliable-narrator
Setting: England, London
Period: 20th-century
190 pages · Paperback · Avon
Content warnings: depression, mental-illness