The Small Back Room (CASSELL MILITARY PAPERBACKS) - Softcover

Balchin, Nigel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1474601162 ISBN 13: 9781474601160

Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2016

Synopsis

A true modern classic, THE SMALL BACK ROOM is a towering novel of the Second World War.

Sammy Rice is a weapons scientist, one of the 'back room boys' of the Second World War. A crippling disability has left him cynical and disillusioned - he struggles with a drink problem at home, and politics and petty pride at work. Worse still, he fears he is not good enough for the woman he loves.

The stakes are raised when the enemy begin to drop a new type of booby-trapped bomb, causing many casualties. Only Sammy has the know-how to diffuse it - but as he comes face to face with real danger, all his old inadequacies return to haunt him.

Can he, at last, prove his worth and put his demons to rest?

About this title

About the Author:

Nigel Balchin was born in 1908 and graduated in Natural Science from Cambridge University. During the Second World War he worked as a psychologist in the personnel section of the British War Office, before becoming Deputy Scientific Advisor to the Army Council. He wrote numerous books, including How to Run a Bassoon Factory (under the pseudonym Mark Spade), and Darkness Falls from the Air. He died in 1970.

Review:

A brilliant novelist . . . A writer of real skill―NEW STATESMAN

[An] inexplicably neglected author―THE TIMES

The novelist of men at work―GUARDIAN

The missing writer of the Forties . . . Balchin's professional skill gives a meaning to brilliance which the word doesn't usually possess―Clive James, NEW REVIEW

Probably no other novelist of Mr. Balchin's value is so eminently and enjoyably readable . . . [He] never lets the reader down―Elizabeth Bowen, TATLER

Perhaps the most successful British author to emerge during the war―SATURDAY EVENING POST

One of the hopes of British novel-writing . . . A writer of genius―John Betjeman

One of the best writers, and certainly one of the best stylists, to come out of the war years―Michael Powell

I'd place him up there with Graham Greene―Philippa Gregory

He tells a story gloriously―DAILY TELEGRAPH

About this edition

• Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1474601162
• ISBN 13: 9781474601160
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192