The Likes of Us

Overview

This classic selection of the best of Stan Barstow’s stories covers the last five decades of British life. A group of young tearaways on a night out that begins with horseplay and ends in tragedy; the loneliness of a drunken miner’s wife; a war-shocked ex-sailor forced beyond endurance; and a factory worker finding his way through his marriage are just a few of the real and involving slices of life that feature ordinary men and women struggling and succeeding. Along with Alan Sillitoe and John Braine, Stan Barstow was considered one of the pioneers of the 1960s school of northern literary realism, paving the way for contemporary authors such Nick Hornby; The Likes of Us will be appreciated by all short story enthusiasts and readers of fiction and literature.

Reviews

“Stan Barstow’s stories . . . have what is so rare in a successful writer—a kind of primary vision, a feeling for characters, the milieux he originally knew and might have grown away from. He speaks for urban provincial life with piercing vividness; for a particular outlook and mortality that few other writers touch.”  —Financial Times

“A master storyteller.”  —Times

“Right up in the same class as D. H. Lawrence.”  —Guardian

“A major writer.”  —Punch magazine

Author Biography

Stan Barstow is the author of a dozen books, including Ask Me Tomorrow, A Kind of Loving, his autobiography In My Own Good Time, The Right True End, and The Watchers on the Shore; three books of short stories; and various scripts for TV, radio, and theater.