Perdita

A sequel, companion, and mirror, to Memoirs of an Old Bastard. In this novel Perdita (the name, of course, of the lost daughter in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale) searches for her lost father, a mysterious and wealthy figure who elusively patrols the book. Perdita is abducted from a comforting orphanage, and then endures manifold abuses at a ‘refuge’ (actually a notorious brothel), escapes, and discovers her ‘real’ father. This novel anticipates the public awareness of child abuse (published 1992), and depicts a manifest human devolution in process, yet is still embroidered with humour, pith and irony.