Thomas Hinde (1926–2014)

A curious and rather uncomfortable book about a dysfunctional upper-middle class English family whose head descends into psychotic depression. The story is told from the point of view of Peter, a somewhat ineffectual undergraduate son. The Mr. Nicholas of the title is a martinet and a philanderer who believes that a wife's place is to look after the home and that his sons should bow to his experience and presumed wisdom and do as they are told. Clearly affluent, Mr Nicholas seems to have no gainful employment.

His wife is well-meaning and compliant, seeing her duty to be to love and care for her husband, despite his unconcealed affair with a neighbour. She is a door-mat! The other family members are Owen, an erratic and obsessional 17 year old with more than a hint of autistic spectrum disorder, and David, the youngest son, who becomes involved in a barely explained, but profound, way with a mature ex-Army officer - religion is declared, sex implied.

The action takes place in the family home, a large house with woodland and a tennis court near military ranges on the Surrey / Hampshire borders. Initially the reader is given the view of young men who are, for various reasons, at odds with their domineering and insensitive father. It gradually becomes clear that Mr Nicholas is not simply pompous, opinionated and prejudiced but has within him the seeds of madness. In the late forties pharmacological treatment of mental illnes was largely confined to sedation with the alternative of psychotherapy using analytic-based methods. Mr. Nicholas is ineffectively treated by his GP and the book ends with his attempted suicide. The ending is inconclusive as, apparently, was typical of Hinde's fiction.

Thomas Hinde, whose first novel this is, was grouped with his contemporaries, John Braine, Kingsley Amis and John Wain as an Angry Young Man.… (plus d'informations)