The personal is political in this short but intense novella which invites comparison with Handke's The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick, although Hughes is a more traditional novelist who gives us plenty of insight into the Major's inner life, unattractive as it is, tinged with a certain dark humour. But in both cases the main character reflects his post-war society and its discontents.

Quick, intense novel about a man with no redeeming features, an ex-army chap who after an unexpectedly early retirement comes home with a burning itch to grind everything around him under his heel. This finds its outlet partly on his long-suffering wife and teenage daughter but primarily on the elderly couple who had taken his home on a long lease shortly before his retirement. He sets about driving them out of the place (and if necessary out of the world) by any means available within the law and some without it. There are some funny duet scenes with the Major's dimwit batman as we soon realise he is not just bad but completely mad. He falls into a strange and rather touching relationship with a neighbourhood widow, is recruited by the police to drive some locals out of their homes and develops an obsession with the Swedish au-pair which leads to his demise. Great novel! ( )