Last Years
In 2003, Bainbridge's grandson Charlie Russell began filming a documentary, Beryl's Last Year, about her life. The documentary detailed her upbringing and her attempts to write a novel, Dear Brutus (which later became The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress); it was broadcast in the United Kingdom on 2 June 2007 on BBC Four.
In 2009, Beryl Bainbridge donated the short story Goodnight Children, Everywhere to Oxfam's Ox-Tales project, four collections of UK stories written by 38 authors. Her story was published in the 'Air' collection. Bainbridge was the patron of the People's Book Prize.
Bainbridge was still working on The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress at the time of her death. The novel, which was based on a real-life journey Bainbridge made across America in 1968, is about the mystery girl reputed to have been involved in the assassination of Robert Kennedy. The novel was edited for publication by Brendan King and published in May 2011 by Little, Brown.
Read more about this topic: Beryl Bainbridge
Famous quotes containing the word years:
“Come Vitus, are we men, or are we children? Of what use are all these melodramatic gestures? You say your soul was killed, and that you have been dead all these years. And what of me? Did we not both die here in Marmaros fifteen years ago? Are we any the less victims of the war than those whose bodies were torn asunder? Are we not both the living dead?”
—Peter Ruric, and Edgar G. Ulmer. Hjalmar Poelzig (Boris Karloff)
“With care, and skill, and cunning art,
She parried Time’s malicious dart,
And kept the years at bay,
Till passion entered in her heart
And aged her in a day!”
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850–1919)