Winner of the Somerset Maugham Award. Greg is thirty-three, without a job or a place to live. Hiding from painful memories, he only half-exists, his lethargy a protection against the world. Alice, his Leninist aunt, disturbed by his apathy, sends him to Dorset to help out a friend. Living in the countryside, working for the wildly eccentric, sports-car-owning Marjorie, he begins to face his past. As their friendship grows Greg is faced with an unexpected challenge that threatens to destroy his new-found happiness. A subtly lyrical novel, written with Peter Benson's trademark wit and understatement, THE OTHER OCCUPANT explores the moving evolution of an unlikely relationship, against a beautiful countryside backdrop.