Book description
This is the story of the comic and yet relentless struggle for
survival of Austin Gibson Grey, the accidental man. Austin is one of
those people who needs to survive through the destruction of others.
The others, in Austin's case, include his successful elder brother,
Matthew, and the women who, one after the other, are so touchingly
convinced that they can 'save' him. In this latter role we meet
Austin's estranged wife, Dorina, a crazed angel, and Austin's far from
angelic alcoholic landlady, Mitzi. Other women interest themselves too
in Austin's fate, with hilarious and appalling results.
An Accidental Man is a novel of extraordinary scope and
variety in which Iris Murdoch's astonishing fertility of mind and
unerring narrative skill are most felicitously combined.
Iris Murdoch was born in Dublin in 1919 of Anglo-Irish parents. She
went to Badminton School, Bristol, and read classics at Somerville
College, Oxford. In 1948 she returned to Oxford where she became a
fellow of St Anne's college. Awarded the CBE in 1976, Iris Murdoch was
made a DBE in the 1987 New Year's Honours List. She died in February
1999.
