Trawl

Trawl was described by Johnson as: "all interior monologue". The book features an absence of paragraphs, while the length of lines in the book is shortened, thus the book is printed in a long, narrow format.^[4] When Johnson presented the work to Fredric Warburg of publishers Secker & Warburg, Warburg believed the work to be an autobiography rather than a novel. Johnson denied this, saying in response: "It is a novel, I insisted and could prove; what it is not is fiction."^[3]

The novel is noted for differing from many of Johnson's other works in that it features a positive ending, in that it when the trawler arrives home, the narrator finds his current love interest Ginnie at the dock waiting for him. Ginnie is based on his then-partner and future wife Virginia Kimpton.^[3][5]

In 1967, Trawl was joint-winner of the Somerset Maugham Award, given to writers to enrich their work through experience of foreign countries. He co-won with Andrew Sinclair's The Better Half.^[6] Johnson won £500, on condition that the money should be spent on foreign travel.^[7]