Quin, Ann. Berg. London: Quartet Books, 1977. 177pp. Paperback.

Scarce.

Excerpt from Talking to Women (1964) by Nell Dunn, a series of interviews with friends, amongst which, the young writer Ann Quin:

Nell: “But do you have this self-destruction thing?”

Ann: “Yes. I think it’s a matter of making much more of that choice, making that freedom that one can either choose to exist or not to exist and I think that if one feels that one has lost one’s grip on oneself, then one does get depressed and moody but it passes and life then becomes a miracle inasmuch as even to walk down the street and see a child smile and I mean what we all want is some contact to make us feel that we do exist because beyond that there is a complete sort of void.”

During the first Bank Holiday weekend of August 1973, British experimental writer Ann Quin walked into the sea at Brighton’s Palace Pier and never returned. Her drowned body was found the next day.

In the Freudian story of Berg, a man called Berg changes his name to Greb and comes to a seaside town to kill is father. Berg was Quin’s first novel and this pocket edition by Quartet is hard to find. It has an ex-libris sticker on the inside cover (“From the library of Mary-Jo Arn”), otherwise it’s in good condition and makes an excellent post-summer, sad and eerie cold desolate beach read.