SYNOPSIS
A Taste of Honey is set in 1950s Salford, United Kingdom. It tells the story of Jo, a seventeen-year-old working class girl whose mother, Helen, is a presented as crude and sexually indiscriminate. Helen leaves Jo alone in their new flat after she her begins a relationship with Peter, a rich and younger lover. At the same time, Jo begins a romantic relationship with Jimmy, a black sailor. Their budding love becomes a marriage proposal. Jimmy goes to sea, leaving Jo pregnant and alone to find lodging with Geoffrey, her homosexual acquaintance. Geoffrey assumes the role of surrogate father until Helen returns after leaving her lover, when the future of Jo’s new family is put into question. A Taste of Honey commented on race and gender matters in mid-twentieth century Britain, but also questioned the constraints of family, and re-evaluated the “nuclear family ideal” of that generation of working class Britons.
