Playing the Harlot; or, Mostly Coffee

By Patricia Avis

Edited, and with an Introduction, by George H. Gilpin and Hermione de Almeida

Virago Press/Little Brown, London and New York, 1996

Reviews of Playing the Harlot

“Playing the Harlot…is the talking point in literary and academic circles on both sides of the Atlantic….The manuscript…lay forgotten and abandoned since the author’s death until discovered by two American researchers at the University of Tulsa, Oklahoma. They had been led to the book by Larkin’s love letters to Avis. And the researchers were excited by the find, identifying it as a major piece of work in the same style as that of the angry young men of the time. George H. Gilpin and Hermione de Almeida agree that Playing the Harlot is an important piece of feminist literature written a generation before its time.”—Kate Calumarte, The Irish News (Belfast)

“Writing to Patricia Avis in 1957, Philip Larkin posed the question: “Are you ever going to produce a book?” The answer, we now know, was yes, and this is it; begun in that year, rejected by Faber in 1963, and only now making it into print. Playing the Harlot is a roman-a-clef…. A useful introduction identifies most…of the leading players of the story….It is hard to claim it for feminism (as the introduction tries to do), or set it in the context of orthodox ‘Movement’ writing. However, it holds the interest from time to time—like all romans-a-clef, it caters to the appetite for gossip and intrigue—and there’s enough in it to suggest that Patricia Avis was on the verge of writing a good novel….”

—Patricia Craig, Times Literary Supplement

“Because it is being published out of its time, its delayed appearance requires some commentary and background information….Much is made of the roman a clef aspects of the novel…which raises all kinds of questions about the nature of fiction in general and the intentions of Avis in particular….However, I found myself surrendering to this novel in spite of its publicity….Although there are flaws consistent with this being a first novel, Avis is clearly a writer of talent and ability.”—Lia Mills, The Irish Tatler

“This is a first novel by a women who eventually died of an overdose of drink and drugs, the cumulative result of depression caused by her unsuccessful attempt to have it or her second novel published. So says the introduction by George H. Gilpin and Hermione de Almeida, which includes hints and tints of Avis’s life, telling us that the novel is really a roman a clef, featuring thinly disguised Really Famous Men like Philip Larkin and our own serious poet, Richard Murphy.”—Katie Donovan, The Irish Times (Dublin)

“The affair of Patricia Avis and Philip Larkin lasted for nearly two years. That a review of her hitherto unpublished novel should begin with this information is perhaps the saddest irony, for Playing the Harlot will not guarantee Patricia Avis fame for what she wrote. Still, it merits a second reading for the delayed action of its despair, conveyed in a prose almost Post-Modern in its oblique spareness.”—Bel Mooney, The Times (London)

“Was this novel worth publishing almost a quarter of a century after its completion? Its defect is that, like its author’s own life, it is chaotically organized, consists of a number of false starts, and eventually get nowhere. But repeatedly the surface of the shallow, meandering river glitters with some arresting phrase or thought, or some revelatory incident involving one of the men whose powerful life jolted and jarred against her fragile one. When that happens, one is glad that this long-silent voice can now be heard.”—Francis King, The Spectator (London)

“Her novel…will appear a little too late for her. It is said to be thoroughly engaging…and skillful, as well as modernist and feminist; and so have been ahead of its time, which must have been embittering since she was clever enough to know it. It promises to position Patricia Avis at last as an equal among the men of her generation. Cold comfort or not, better late than never.”—Anne Haverty, The Independent

Additional Information on Playing the Harlot

Description:

“The thought of your great work makes me shudder.”—Philip Larkin to Patricia Avis.

Rejected in 1963 by a distinguished publisher, partly “because it slandered his friends,” this remarkable novel is now published for the first time. An intriguing roman a clef, it depicts the Fifties generation of raffish young literary intellectuals, among them Philip Larkin, Avis’s friend and lover. Its lively evocation of the era and its acute analysis of sexual politics add depth to a brilliant and poignant story.

The previously unpublished novel manuscript was written 1957-1961. Patricia Avis, poet, novelist, and critic, died in 1977 at age forty-nine.

· Hardcover: 252 pages

· Publisher: Virago Press/Little Brown, London and New York, 1996

· Series: Virago Modern Classics

· ISBN-10: 1 86049 004 2