Vac - Paul Ableman

First published in 1968, Vac is Paul Ableman's bleak, darkly comic novel about love, loneliness and emotional collapse. After his wife walks out following twelve years of marriage, Billy Sooderman drifts through a haze of drinking, casual sex and failed attempts to rebuild his life, only to find himself pulled deeper into isolation by memories he can't shake.

Ableman's writing is sharp, uncompromising and often uncomfortable, capturing the messiness of obsession and self-destruction with striking psychological insight. A cult British novel that sits somewhere between literary fiction and social satire, Vac remains a powerful portrait of a man unravelling in the wake of loss.