Room at the Top (novel)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Room at the Top is a novel by the English author John Braine, first published in the UK by Eyre & Spottiswoode in 1957. It tells the story of the rise of an ambitious young man of humble origins and the struggles he faces in post-war Britain to realise his ambitions.
Plot summary
Joe Lampton, recently demobilised from the armed forces of late 1940s Britain, is about to start a new job with the Municipal Treasury in the fictional town of Warley. He has, we learn, spent the time he was a POW studying to pass his accountancy exams. We also learn that he is an orphan, his parents having been killed in one of the few air raids that affected his hometown.
He takes lodgings with a middle-class couple, the Thompsons, who live in the better part of town. They introduce him to the local amateur dramatic society, which is in need of new faces. From here, Joe meets Susan Brown - the only daughter of a very successful local businessman. Although Susan is supposed to be engaged to the dashing Jack Wales, the scion of an old upper class family, she allows herself to be wooed by Joe.
However, Joe is also having a torrid affair with an older woman, Alice Aisgill. But when Susan reveals that she is pregnant - and her father demands that she and Joe are married (which had been Joe's intent from the beginning) - he ends his relationship with Alice. This leads to Alice's death in a drunken car accident which, we learn, was probably close to suicide.
The novel closes with Joe getting drunk in attempt to deal with his guilt over Alice's death and his schemed marriage to Susan.
