7.4 /10 1 Votes
Language English Pages 141 pp Originally published 1967 Publisher Hart-Davis, MacGibbon Adaptations Poor Cow (1967) | 3.7/5 Goodreads Publication date 1967 Preceded by Up the Junction ISBN 860689905 Country United Kingdom | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Media type Print (hardback & paperback) Followed by Tear His Head Off His Shoulders Similar Up the Junction, Home Death, Cancer Tales, My Silver Shoes | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Poor Cow is the first full-length novel by Nell Dunn, first published in 1967 by MacGibbon & Kee. The novel is a study of a working class girl from the East End of London, struggling through the swinging sixties after making one bad decision too many. The novel was adapted for film in the same year of publication.
Contents
Plot
Working class Joy, 22 and dreaming of the good life the swinging sixties has promised discovers the pitfalls of the new promiscuity when her husband Tom is sent to prison for theft, leaving her to look after baby Jonny. She moves in with her Auntie Emm and manages to keep her head above water by working as a barmaid and occasional tart. When Joy begins an affair with a friend of her husband, another petty thief, she can’t help but start to dream all over again. It is only when her child goes missing that she finally realizes the emptiness of her daydreams.
Adaptations
Nell Dunn wrote the screenplay for a film version in 1967, directed by Ken Loach and starring Carol White and Terence Stamp.