ABSTRACT
In sharp contrast to A Slight Ache’s daylight forces of life, A Night Out travels a gloomy exploration of a nether world where entrapment of the self and others results from a stultifying lack of perceived choice. In A Night Out, Albert prepares to go out but is restrained by his mother who wants him to put a bulb in the long dead grandmother’s room. Albert finally joins his colleagues Seeley and Kedge in a discussion of the office team’s Saturday game as it becomes clear that Albert’s ranking superior Gidney, the team’s coach, is out to get him for his poor playing he blames for the team’s Saturday defeat. Later, at the company retirement party for Ryan which Albert resists attending, Albert, unable to match Gidney’s favorable impression with the secretaries ends by taking the blame for Ryan’s surreptitiously touching Ei leen. Ryan’s move on Ei leen, which may consequently cost Albert his job, sends Albert home where he first transfers his humiliation to his mother by striking her with an alarm clock, then leaves again, meets and humiliates a young woman by exposing her pretense of being a lady with a daughter off at school. When Albert returns home his mother strokes his hand, assuring him he is a good boy.
