{"product_id":"9781770890640","title":"Midsummer Night in the Workhouse","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"I can remember in detail being hit by my first story one January morning in 1958.\" So begins literary legend Diana Athill in the preface to Midsummer Night in the Workhouse, a long-overdue collection of her short fiction, stories which were originally published in the 1950s to the 1970s.\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003eIn unsentimental though often touching prose, Athill’s young women anticipate, enjoy, or just miss out on brief sexual encounters with men met on trains, at parties -- just about anywhere they can. A cheating wife, back with her boring husband, is wracked with agonizing love for the unavailable partner of her brief fling; a writer seeks inspiration at a writers’ retreat whilst avoiding the group seducer’s invitation; a wife’s party flirtations propel her possessive husband into another woman’s bed; two fun-loving women face a sinister sexual assault during a Greek holiday; a teenager experiences enraptured detachment during her first kiss.\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003eBeautifully written, perceptive, touching, and funny, \u003cem\u003eMidsummer Night in the Workhouse\u003c\/em\u003e is Diana Athill at her best.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"House of Anansi Press Inc","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47131097399536,"sku":"9781770890640","price":16.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781770890640_p0.jpg?v=1763706984","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781770890640","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}