In the winter of 1884, John Selby Watson, a clergyman and headmaster living in London, writes a series of love letters—including a marriage proposal—to a woman he met only briefly at a social gathering many years before. Though Anne Armstrong does not remember Watson, she is desperate to escape poverty and the miserable life she shares with her sister in a moldy Dublin boarding house. So she accepts.
Despite the abrupt circumstances of their engagement—and Anne's initial distaste for her betrothed—several years of happy marriage follow. But Watson soon becomes entrenched in his studies of classical literature, leaving his wife feeling alienated and dejected. Trivial disputes agitate the couple's domestic life with increasing frequency—a letter goes missing, the page of a book gets stained—until the bickering erupts into full-blown abuse and, during a night of drinking, their toxic environment reaches its destructive climax.
Based on a real nineteenth-century murder case, Watson's Apology is a speculative novel about the complex psychological motivations that underlie a seemingly straightforward domestic tragedy. Using dark irony and twisted humor, award-winning British author Beryl Bainbridge reveals the terror that resides in the banal, and the suspense that can be found in the mysteries of the mind and heart.
-
Creators
-
Publisher
-
Release date
November 1, 2016 -
Formats
-
Kindle Book
-
OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9781504039949
- File size: 2964 KB
-
EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9781504039949
- File size: 4228 KB
-
-
Accessibility
-
Languages
- English
Why is availability limited?
×Availability can change throughout the month based on the library's budget. You can still place a hold on the title, and your hold will be automatically filled as soon as the title is available again.
The Kindle Book format for this title is not supported on:
×Read-along ebook
×The OverDrive Read format of this ebook has professional narration that plays while you read in your browser. Learn more here.