Volume 25, Number 6 · April 20, 1978
Nothing Sacred
By Michael Wood
Injury Time
by Beryl Bainbridge
George Braziller, 203 pp., $7.95
The World According to Garp
by John Irving
E.P. Dutton/Henry Robbins, 437 pp., $10.95
An American Romance
by John Casey
Pocket Books, 455 pp., $2.25
The image is plausible enough, but the hint of parody in the language, the suggestion of life wrapped up in a rugged simile, should warn us not to take it too seriously, even if Beryl Bainbridge does pursue it in the title of her very funny new novel. Injury Time in this context is time added on for stoppages, a game's last ghostly flicker, and the injuries in this case are a rape, some broken ribs, and a sliced ear which causes its balding owner to feel his philandering days are done—'Women were used to men losing their hair. They didn't expect ears to recede as well; he wasn't Van Gogh….'
Review, 3588 words
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