A Vicious Circle (1996) is a novel by Amanda Craig which dissects and satirizes contemporary British society. In particular, it describes the world of publishing -- its aspiring young authors, busy agents and oppor tunist literary critics. However, A Vicious Circle is also about falling in and out of love, marriage, bringing up children, class consciousness, poverty, and the sad state of hospitals and the medical profession in Britain. Amanda Craig (born 1959) is a British novelist. ... ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... Marriage is a relationship and bond between individuals that plays a key role in the definition of many families. ... Class consciousness is a category of Marxist theory, referring to the self-awareness of a social class, its capacity to act in its own rational interests, or measuring the extent to which an individual is conscious of the historical tasks their class (or class allegiance) sets for them. ... Poverty is the state of being without, often associated with need, hardship and lack of resources across a wide range of circumstances. ... A physician visiting the sick in a hospital. ...

The novel chronicles the life of Amelia, the only daughter of newspaper tycoon Max de Monde who, after having spoiled Amelia beyond hope while she was still young, abandons her when she becomes pregnant. Amelia decides to marry Mark Crawley, the fath er of her child, an ambitious young critic intent on shaking off his humble background. Suddenly, the young couple find themselves in desperate need of money and, at first, accommodations. While she stays at home raising their daughter Rose, Amelia metamo rphoses from spoiled brat to mature and responsible mother, whereas her husband loses all interest in the housewife he now realizes he has married. Amelia is encouraged to stay on her chosen path by Grace, her cleaning woman -- who is also her niece (without either of the women being aware of this), and by Tom Viner, a young doctor who becomes their lodger.

A Vicious Circle also follows the life of Mary Quinn. An Irish girl lacking a university education, Mary has a natural writing talent and rises to become a prominent reviewer of new fiction after having been left by her lover of many years, Mark Crawley. Mary makes friends with Adam Sands, a yet unpublished author who keeps his homosexuality a secret from almost everyone including his own mot her. When he is dying of an AIDS-related disease, Mary is the only person who remembers and eventually takes care of him. Since its coining, the term homosexuality has aquired multiple meanings. ... The Red Ribbon symbol is used internationally to represent the fight against AIDS. AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome or Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, rarely written Aids) is a disease characterized by the destruction of the human immune system. ...

When the recession of the 1990s hits the country everyone seems to be affected by it. Max de Monde, who has even plundered his daughter´s trust fund, spectacularly commits suicide by crashing his helicopter against the ground. Amelia leaves Mark and is planning to raise her daughter as a single parent. � A recession is usually defined in macroeconomics as a fall of a countrys real Gross National Product in two or more successive quarters of a year. ... // Events and trends The 1990s are generally classified as having moved slightly away from the more conservative 1980s, but keeping the same mind-set. ... In common law legal systems, a trust is a relationship in which a person or entity (the trustee) has legal control over certain property (the trust property or trust corpus), but is bound by a fiduciary duty to exercise that legal control for the benefit of someone else (the beneficiary... Suicide (from Latin sui caedere, to kill oneself) is the act of wilfully ending ones own life; it is sometimes a noun for one who has committed or attempted the act. ... A single parent is a parent with one or more children, who is neither married, nor living together with his or her partners. ...