Difficulties With Girls

In Kingsley Amis’s *Difficulties With Girls,* Jenny Bunn and Patrick Standish have settled into London life ** with their troubled courtship long behind them. Patrick works in publishing and Jenny teaches sick children in a hospital. They have reached a certain level of maturity, or so they think. It is not long before they realize their respectability will be severely tested by seductive neighbours with a taste for whisky, the sexually confused Ted Valentine, and the literary set of Hampstead.
In this funny and provocative study of a young couple growing up, Amis shows us that the difficulty with marriage is that it’s so hard to preserve, especially when Patrick and Jenny harbour deep yearnings for a different kind of life.
Kingsley Amis’s (1922-95) works take a humorous yet highly critical look at British society, especially in the period following the end of World War II. Born in London, Amis explored his disillusionment in novels such as *That Uncertain Feeling* (1955). His other works include *The Green Man* (1970), *Stanley and the Women* (1984), and *The Old Devils* (1986), which won the Booker Prize. Amis also wrote poetry, criticism, and short stories.