Help on finding an obscure book

June 19, 2006 10:23 AM

I'm looking for help in finding out who the author/publisher of a book called "The Camp" are

I read this book many (many) years ago while I was living in the UK. Called "The Camp" (I'm pretty sure) it is a fictional work that tells the story of a group of British National Servicemen serving on a Royal Air Force base in 1950's Germany. For reasons too lengthy to explain here I would really like to get hold of a copy of it, but searches on the usual places (Amazon, Amzon UK, and EBay) turned up nothing. Googling 'The Camp' gives me way too many options to go through.

Can any Me-Fi'ers out there assist with an author's name or the name of the publisher?

posted by 543DoublePlay to Writing & Language (2 answers total)

Best answer: Could the author be Gordon M. Williams? The synopsis on AllBookstores.com sounds like your description.

"British soldiers, assigned to a military base in Germany, attempt to cope with an unreasonable military discipline that degenerates into near sadism."

This particular edition was published by Random House in 1980, but there are other editions published by Allison and Busby (1980), Schocken Books (1980), and Stein and Day (1966).

Here's Williams's Wikipedia entry.
posted by gargoyle93 at 10:52 AM on June 19, 2006

Response by poster: Thanks Gargoyle93, I think you have aced this one. Armed with a name I managed to research it a little more. The timeline is definitely right and I think I have traked it down on a site I have never come across before called Alibris. Brilliant! Thanks very much.
posted by 543DoublePlay at 11:07 AM on June 19, 2006