A review by debsiddoway
The Bottle Factory Outing by Beryl Bainbridge

4.0

As I began this book, I had high expectations. Unfortunately, the start, for me, was slow, however, I worked my way through the book, and by the time I reached the end, I realised that the book had extended tentacles that had curled around me and drawn me in. I had to read the end of one particular chapter three times to ensure that what I thought had happened had really happened. Freda and Brenda, two women who work together and live together in an overly-intimate, claustrophobic bedsit could not be more different. Freda, more romantic and yearning for a relationship is more assertive and bossy, taking what control she can over the course that she wants her life to take. Brenda, a wife who has fled from a marriage for reasons that the reader is mostly forced to take a guess at, is beaten down by her circumstances. She almost cannot say no, and finds her body constantly being raked over by the factory manager because she is unable to assert herself. I found this perhaps the most depressing aspect of this book - the way in which women were routinely subjected to sexual invasion and expected to accept it, if not be complicit in it. The narrative was intriguing, and there was a strong sense of character, with casual sexism and racism thrown in to depict a workplace that is simmering with underlying tensions. Perhaps a microcosm for the larger world in which we live? The ending sat uncomfortably with me and this is possibly one of the greatest strengths of the novel. I think I will certainly be moving on to explore more by this writer.