David Makinson
Set in the cultural twilight between the conservative 1950s and the liberating sunshine of the late 1960s, Just a One Night Stand tells the emotive story of unmarried Marion McKenzie who, at nineteen, becomes pregnant during a drunken one night stand with Martin Corrigan, a Somerset farmer’s son. Unaware of his paternity, Martin goes up to Cambridge University. Once she realises she is pregnant, Marion is forced to confess her plight to her fiancé, Simon Thompson. Furious at her infidelity and unwilling to father another man’s child, he gives her an ultimatum... him or the baby. Too afraid of her divorced father’s reaction to confide in him, and unwilling to trust her mother not to tell him, Marion turns to her elder sister, Gemma. She reluctantly agrees to allow Marion to live with her in London until after the baby is born. Marion plans to have her baby adopted - until he is born with a serious medical complication. What will Marion do? Just a One Night Stand deftly propels the reader back to a time without extensive state support - a time characterised by entirely different social mores from liberal 21st century Britain. For Marion, the 1960s were anything but swinging! 3
