SOURCE: “Beryl Bainbridge: The New Psychopathia,” in The Hidden Script: Writing and the Unconscious, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985, pp. 59-77.
In the following essay, Punter examines the presentation of psychological trauma in Bainbridge's novels and the struggles among her characters, particularly those who are female, to deal with both familial and cultural forces of alienation, deprivation, abuse, and rejection.