Shortlisted for the Booker PrizeWinner of the Guardian Fiction PrizeFreda and Brenda spend their days working in an Italian-run wine-bottling factory. A work outing offers promise for Freda and terror for Brenda; passions run high on that chilly day of freedom, and life after the outing never returns to normal. Beryl Bainbridge dazzles readers in this offbeat, haunting yet hilarious novel. 'An outrageously funny and horrifying novel' Graham Greene'Superb... taut in construction, expansive in characterisation, vibrant in atmosphere and profoundly comic' The Times'The masterful restraint of Beryl Bainbridge's sentences reveals an author in complete control of her artistry' Guardian

This is a superb novel. It is taut in construction, expansive in characterization, vibrant in atmosphere and profoundly comic - The TimesThe masterful restraint of Beryl Bainbridge's sentences reveals an author in complete control of her artistry, while the book itself displays unexpected political aptness...It is, in short, superb prose. There are perhaps few sentences that stand out as individual gems. But there are also few writers who offer more control and delight line-by-line - GuardianAfter turning the final page of The Bottle Factory Outing, one can only gasp, and grope for the right word...Such an atmosphere of impending doom has not been created since Brighton Rock - except that Beryl Bainbridge is mercilessly comic instead of being mercilessly vicious. Specialising in successive denouements, and with her gift for collecting the most amazing detail, she is so in control of her marvellous little story that one hangs on her words from first to last. What originality, what pleasure - Sunday Times