The Stump (Hart-Davis, MacGibbon 1973) 

'Three weeks after losing my virginity I was wildly in love; that's how simple things were,
those days.'

Those days ... before Angela ran away to Ireland with Walter, her 'dream made flesh';
before the brutality of his lovemaking began to destroy their affair; before the terrible night
of the accident which forced her into new, alien ways of life and love.

'One day I was healthy, whole, complete, a secret happiness ripening within me, then night
fell and my life changed. I accepted the situation only because the useless horror of rebellion
would have driven me mad.'

The Stump is the unflinchingly honest, deeply moving account of a young girl's struggle to
cope with a cruel misfortune. It marks a striking new departure for Alexis Lykiard,
best-selling author of The Summer Ghosts and A Sleeping Partner. The maturity of the
writing and the depth of his compassion make it his most important novel to date.

“Ferocious skill… Painfully accurate” [Birmingham Post] 

“An intelligent study of human responses to personal misfortune” [Sunday Times] 

“A striking advance in sensibility and power of characterization by comparison with his early work…the author handles his heroine’s predicament with impressive insight and understanding” [British Book News] 

“A savage little tale… often painfully accurate” [Jean Richardson, Birmingham Post]

“Interesting in an almost archetypal way as the attempt of a metallic young writer to come to grips with feeling” [Observer]

“Although the English girl who is its narrator is a long way removed from the Greek man who is its author, there is an air of reality about The Stump” [Books & Bookmen] 

“A sick story” [Rand Post, S.Africa] 

“An unflinchingly honest and deeply moving account of a young girl’s struggle to cope with cruel misfortune. It is also a very striking and hardhitting comment on society’s attitude to physically disabled people. It is a book which once you start you will want to read from cover to cover” [Weekly Courier, Melbourne] 

“Deeply felt” [Guardian] 

“Distastefully written” [Cosmopolitan]

“A very powerful, wonderfully written, but very painful book. Clever of you to write as if a woman!”
[Letter to the author from Rosaleen Cooper, MD., 1981. Dr. Rosaleen Cooper, sister of Robert Graves, was among the very first women GPs in England.]
 

“Joy! and Best Wishes for your viewing eye, feeling heart and writing arm.”
[Letter to the author from Maya Angelou, May 1989]