The Old Devils(1986)

Kingsley Amis

Do people ever really grow up? The old devils in this book are just as they have always been, but trapped in a slowly aging body. It's like living in a house that needs repair, but the repairman never comes. When Alun Weaver and his wife, Rhiannon, a famous beauty in her day, move into a quiet retirement community, they find it peopled by friends from former days. Suddenly all the ambitions and energies, overgrown like weeds with years, burst out afresh. In Amis' hands the results are predictably funny. Amis received the Booker Prize, Britian's highest literary honor, in 1986 for THE OLD DEVILS.