Polly Garter's War
The Second World War has begun and atrickle of odd characters, including Dylan and Caitlin Thomas, are escaping to New Quay in West Wales to get out of its way.
Dolly James, awoman with a pnuematic figure and a shady past, turns up there one morning, immediately becoming a big hit in the gossip of the boys in the bar.
She is a good girl until she sniffs alcohol, when she's anyone's. Soon she has bestowed her wondrous sexual favours on a series of men including Dylan himself, a Welsh Nationalist teacher and a German U-boat captain who, after a steamy encounter with her in the back row of the local cinema, begins turning from a stiff Teutonic type into a raving mad Welshman.
Dolly has an even stranger quirk, we also soon learn, since she shouts out verses from the bible in Welsh when she is making love and she doesn't even understand Welsh. Is she the prototype of Polly Garter?
Lusty and drop dead funny. Polly Garter's War is a novel which has something to upset everyone. It is also a fast-paced romp around Wales at war and little will prepare you for an end which explodes into a visionary rainbow.