Saville

'This is the story of Colin Saville, a miner's son, and his growth from the 1930s on, his rise in the world by way of grammar school and college. At first there is triumph in this, not least for the father who had spurred him on, but later "alienated from his class, and with nowhere yet to go" Colin finds himself spiritually destitute, bitter, still held against his will in the place that made him . . . A feast of a book . . . it engenders remarkable tension because this self-effacing author, before removing himself from the book, seems to enter organically into his characters, writing from the gut of their experience.' - Sunday Telegraph David Storey's Booker Prize winner Saville (1976) - called 'the best of all the Bookers' by a leading British critic - returns to print in the United States for the first time in decades in this new edition, which includes a new foreword by the author and the original dust jacket art by Tom Adams. Acclaimed in both England and America as one of the leading authors of his generation, Storey won numerous major awards for his works during the 1960s and 70s, but his works have fallen into neglect in the United States in recent years. Valancourt Books has also republished Storey's Radcliffe and Pasmore , with the aim of enabling American readers to rediscover this important and immensely talented author. 'Reading this magnificent book is like drinking pure spring water from cupped hands. It has no false notes, no heaviness of emphasis, no editorial manipulations of plot to prove a point. One becomes so totally involved in the lives of these people that their every word and action becomes charged with meaning.... Reminiscent of a nineteenth-century classic.' - Jeremy Brooks, Sunday Times Set in and around the Second World War, David Storey’s tale about a boy from a mining town who grows away from his roots won the Booker Prize in 1976."Mesmerically readable, 'Saville' is a revelation. It is alive with light and air and a kind of perpetual motion." - Michael Ratcliffe, The TimesSaville is set in South Yorkshire in the fictional mining village of Saxton. This is the story of Colin Saville’s struggle to come to terms with his family - his mercurial, ambitious father, his deep-feeling, long-suffering mother - and to escape the stifling heritage of the raw mining community into which he was born."Reading this magnificent book is like drinking pure spring water from cupped hands. It has no false notes, no heaviness of emphasis, no editorial manipulations of plot to prove a point. One becomes so totally involved in the lives of these people that their every word and action becomes charged with meaning... Reminiscent of a nineteenth-century classic." - Jeremy Brooks, Sunday TimesDavid Storey studied at the Slade School of Art, before a writing career that yielded 15 plays and 11 novels. His novels include This Sporting Life, which was made into an acclaimed film starring Richard Harris. Storey’s work won many prizes, including the Macmillan Fiction Award, the Somerset Maugham Award, the Faber Memorial Prize and, in 1976, the Booker Prize, for Saville.