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The author:
John Braine is a Yorkshireman. After minor jobs he became
library assistant at Bingley and followed this career until
the success of this book, which is his first novel, and it is a remarkable one.
Main characters:
Joseph Lampton: short Joe
He is the first person narrator and a very attractive and energetic young man in the age of 24. years.
Susan Brown: She is a very pretty and rich young girl who falls in love with Joe.
Alice Aisgill: She is married, 34-years-old and she has an affair with Joe.
The plot:
Joe Lampton is brought up on the fringes of poverty and squalor in an ugly North Country town. He emerges to fight up his way into the bright world of money and influence.
So, when he moves to a new town and a new job and starts to range among comfortably-off, intelligent people, it looks as if the campaign is succeding. It is not long before Susan falls in love with him. And there is only one thing that holds him back. He is himself in love with Alice. Between them an extraordinary love grows up, a passion of both the heart and the senses. But then
Joe has dates with Susan and the more time he meets her, the more he loves her. Susan is quite childish and romantic and that is something Joe loves most about her. In the first time he dates
with Susan he has the affair with Alice side by side. He cannot imagine that Susan will find out that he makes love to Alice,
but she gets to know it nevertheless. And so for the moment it is the end for their love. His affair with Alice continues till he spends his holidays with friends and one of them tells him to
think about his relationship with Susan again. Joe writes her a letter and after it they come together again. One day Mr. Brown, Susan.s father, talks with Joe about the relationship to his daughter. His father in law to be tells him that he gets a lot of money if he promises not to see his daughter again. But the love between Joe and Susan is grown so strong that he refuses the
offer. Mr. Brown is happy to find out that Joe loves his daughter and not the money. After that Susan wants him to break the relationship with Alice. So Joe tells Alice that he finishes the affair. Next day he gets to know that Alice is killed in a car accident. Joe feels guilty about her death. He spends one day and one night outside of town and gets very drunk. But he comes home savely and Susan and he start in a new life.
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