THE LONG WINTER

Andrew "the world's wreck and his own cuckoldry" after a permanent radiation drop makes an westland of England. Just prior to the national emergency, the . Andrew and Carol, have met the , David and Madeleine, and Carol and David become intimate. Carol however is the first to leave the country for Africa, and when Andrew and Madeleine follow her there (David insists on sticking it out at home) they find she has managed to exist as the kept woman of a Nigerian. There is no money, no housing, no food, no jobs for the European: the Africans have achieved their long revenge, and this reversal, the superimposition of black on white, adds a twist to the adventure elements here and the catastrophe into something more than a suspense situation. In any , it is handled smoothly, and sometimes excitingly, for the survival victims .