In his memoir

Stuart Holroyd relates what happened to him during a period of some 14 months at the end of the 1950s. Ready for a serious love affair, after a failed marriage and a series of casual relationships, he met Carol. As the relationship started turning sour, she became pregnant. Meanwhile, he had fallen in love with Sue Rowland. Most of the book deals with the repercussions of these events set against the background of Holroyd’s association with the Angry Young Men at a time when their notoriety and influence were in decline.

Contraries opens in the autumn of 1958 with a description of Carol, a 22-year-old, would-be actress. Holroyd was 24 at the time he met her with a broken marriage and some dozen affairs behind him (12). He was eager “to undergo the shattering

2068 words

Citation: Diller, Antoni. "Contraries". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 09 December 2014 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=35244, accessed 22 November 2024.]