Necessary Ends
Edition: 1st edition
Publisher: Random House
Published: April 5, 1999
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 217
ISBN-13: 9780091800697
Subjects: Modern fiction; Nonfiction; Fiction; Non-Classifiable; FICTION_GENERAL; Fiction / General; General
First sentence: The old man squinted at the sunshine dazzling through the branches and leaves of limes and sycamores.
Description: Sam Martin feels himself to be lucky.  He lives in rich retirement and in good health despite his old age, busying himself with painting, walking and with the affairs of others he observes from his Norfolk bungalow.  Formerly a successful international businessman, he has had to adjust to a smaller and apparently more restricted world - but one with its own dramas operating on a human scale, which is the largest scale of all.
From his vantage point of age and seeming detachment, Sam is soon drawn into the local community and becomes involved in a variety of events and relationships: a little girl lost on the beach, whose rescue introduces him to Karen Craig and opens up a difficult contemporary marriage; the redoubtable wife of the local retired admiral, whose life receives a stunning blow when they are robbed; the histronic Jack Brentnall, always the centre of attention in the local pub; and Alice Jeffreys, whose role is yet to be revealed.
In Necessary Ends, Stanley Middleton explores the realities of old age in a manner inclusive of many of the human values usually excluded from it in contemporary fiction.  It is a work of both opportunity and reconciliation.
Notes: Author lived 1919-2009.
Table of contents: title: "The old man squinted....
pagenum: 001
class: part
label: I; label: II
pagenum: 012
title: "Two mornings later Mrs Craig....; label: III
pagenum: 026
title: "Two days later Mrs Craig...; title: "Lunch with the Craigs...
pagenum: 034
label: IV; label: V
pagenum: 055
title: "Next day about...; title: "Sam Martin,...
pagenum: 062
label: VI; label: VII
pagenum: 078
title: "September proved...; label: VIII
pagenum: 092
title: "Within the next few days...; title: "The end of that day...
pagenum: 109
label: IX; title: "Three days later Sam...
pagenum: 126
label: X; title: "The time up to Christmas...
pagenum: 142
label: XI; label: XII
pagenum: 160
title: "Sam's Christmas Day...; label: XIII
pagenum: 170
title: "The next morning Alice...; title: "Alice Jeffreys...
pagenum: 181
label: XIV; label: XV
pagenum: 199
title: "Sam was up early,...