I'll Go to Bed at Noon (2004), is a book by author Gerard Woodward. It was shortlisted for Booker Prize (2004).
Set in the north London suburb of Palmers Green in the 1970s, the story opens with Colette Jones attending the funeral of her elder brother's wife, followed by her failed attempts to save him from excessive drinking. Alcoholism also destroys the life of Colette's son, a talented pianist, whom she tries to exile from her house.
It seems likely that the title was inspired by the William Shakespeare play King Lear. "And I'll go to bed at noon" is the last line spoken by the Fool.
Famous quotes containing the words bed and/or noon:
“It is remarkable with what pure satisfaction the traveler in these woods will reach his camping-ground on the eve of a tempestuous night like this, as if he had got to his inn, and, rolling himself in his blanket, stretch himself on his six-feet-by-two bed of dripping fir twigs, with a thin sheet of cotton for roof, snug as a meadow-mouse in its nest.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“At noon in the desert a panting lizard
waited for history, its elbows tense,
watching the curve of a particular road
as if something might happen.”
—William Stafford (1914–1941)