David Lodge

Bernard Walsh, agnostic theologian, has a professional interest in heaven. But when he travels to Hawaii with his reluctant father Jack, to visit Jack's dying, estranged sister it feels more like purgatory than paradise.

Surrounded by quarrelling honeymooners, a freeloading anthropologist and assorted tourists in search of their own personal paradise, and with his father whisked off to hospital after an unfortunate accident, Bernard is beginning to regret ever coming to Haiwaii. Until, that is, he stumbles on something he had given up hope of finding: the astonishing possibility of love. 

CONTENT WARNING: contains scenes of a sexual nature and explicit language

David Lodge looks back over his childhood and youth, including his undergraduate years at University College London. After National Service and two years’ postgraduate research, married at last and soon a father, he struggles to make a start as both novelist and academic.

A middle-aged TV sit-com writer seeks the one thing he doesn't have - contentment. Strong language.