The Good Companions The Good Companions The Good Companions is a novel by the English author J. B. Priestley. Written in 1929 (in Deal, Kent), it focuses on the trials and tribulations of a concert party in England between World War I and World War II. It is arguably Priestley's most famous novel, and the work which established him as a national figure. It won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and was adapted twice into film. The novel is written in picaresque style, and opens with the middle aged, discontented Jess Oakroyd in the fictional Yorkshire town of Bruddersford. He opts to
The Nice and the Good Time". This is Richard Biranne's favourite painting, depicting what he calls "the only real kiss ever represented in a picture". Paula goes to see it in the National Gallery during their estrangement, and they meet in front of it when they decide to reconcile. The cover of the first English edition of "The Nice and the Good" is based on a detail from the painting. "The Nice and the Good" was widely reviewed and generally well received, although Bernard Bergonzi, writing in "The New York Review of Books" found it "readable, certainly" but an "unimportant book", and suggested that its