Binny [protagonist of Injury Time] …, mother of three, husbandless, in her mid-forties, is not the first Beryl Bainbridge heroine to be afflicted with an indignant sense that her life is not under control—her own or anyone else's. At times indignation rises to terror though more often it's bad temper; except when drink or, less often, a moment's offguard tenderness releases her, she is usually trembling, alert to some imminent slight or outrage. She can't go shopping without seeing or suspecting nastiness of one kind or another. (p. 57)
We know by now the deadly striking power of the Bainbridge sentence, the exactness of her social horror show. This is as good as ever: the jokes are funny in the 'I could have died' style. Indeed, 'I could have died' lurks inside each of the overburdened, slightly malfunctioning frames she has given her middle-aged characters. I'm not entirely carried away, though, by the move towards plot—or perhaps it is a device for turning a novella, just, into a novel. Binny, Edward and their friends are thrust into real adventure, risk and violence: 'I could have died' begins to look like an outside threat, as a group of gunmen invade the house, pursued by the police. Of course it gives her a chance to have some satirical fun about television sociologists' attitudes to criminals, and her local effects are as sharp as one could wish. A rape evokes one large tear from the left eye, a rather distant sense of responsibility and 'she wasn't even young enough … to feel sorry for herself'. It's believable, if not what women are currently supposed to come up with. But the fact is criminals do remain ineffectual stereotypes and although they inconvenience their victims they don't advance very far into the reader's imagination: they are clearly a device, and a device that is going nowhere. And so the book loses momentum. (p. 58)
Claire Tomalin, "Trite Finish," in The New Review (© The New Review Ltd., 11 Greek Street, London WIV 5LE), November, 1977, pp. 57-8.
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