THE JOY-RIDE AND AFTER

These three complete, but interrelated stories, treat of the darker relations between men and women in a brilliant fashion. The book opens when Joe Munn, 16, a gas station attendant in a London slum, becomes haunted by a sly, lying girl, Edith. To escape her power, Joe takes her on a wild ride in a ""borrowed"" sports car and hits a woman. Believing that he has killed her, Joe is trapped forever with Edith in his obscure, sexual guilts. The woman, Alice, is however not dead and comes to, her memory gone, in a derelict boat with a rough tramp. Her painful attempt to rediscover her identity and her descent into the abyss of human needs is a compelling, shocking section of the book. In the last part, Edith appears again, married, and in another deceit is revealed to her petty but honest husband...The stories, powerful in themselves, have strong, startling undercurrents and present disturbing perspectives.