A Cautious Approach - Hardcover

Shortly before his death last year, Stanley Middleton completed this, his last novel, which concludes a unique depiction of middle-class life in 'Middle England', quietly and cumulatively over many volumes and decades. Once again we are in Beechnall, the constant setting of Stanley Middleton's novels, and his sense of place and his feeling for his characters remains as strong as ever.

At the heart of A Cautious Approach is a tentative love story, which begins when two lonely men meet, out walking on Christmas Day: Andy invites George home, and there he meets the captivating Mirabel, Andy's former fiancée. George has been a teacher, but ill health has deprived him of his career and confidence, and he has retrained as a postman. This chance encounter, and others that follow, have the potential to shift George's life, and soon he is drawn into a set of uncertain relationships in which past experience, present stoicism and future expectation all play a part.

As ever, but here for the last time, Stanley Middleton's bold experimentation with flashbacks, and the embedding of one scene or dialogue within another, gives added density to his depiction of ordinary, defiantly unfashionable human lives.

Praise for Her Three Wise Men

'It may look to the naked eye like a small ripple in the small midlands town of Beechnall, but passion and violence are bubbling beneath the placid surface. A.S. Byatt has described Middleton's art as "an exact vision of real things as they are"; which neatly sums up his understated accuracy, and the subtle development of his characters.'
The Times

'Though love is on the agenda, this is also a book that rejoices in the workings of the mind and celebrates the intellect but is never dry . . . One thing you don't get with Middleton is dumbing down.'
Daily Express

'In Her Three Wise Men, Middleton constructs a provincial world where everyone displays good manners and emotional continence but strong feelings swirl beneath the surface'
TLS