Man Booker Prize–winning author David Storey takes us to a crumbling English town where a childhood friendship blossoms into obsessive love Leonard Radcliffe is the last heir to a proud family name that has nearly been forgotten. All that remains of the Radcliffe legacy is the Place: a ramshackle manor that once loomed over the countryside, but is now hemmed in by public housing and all but shaken apart by the trains that pass beneath it. At age 9, Leonard is shy, lonely, and too smart for his own good. When he becomes the target of school bullies, he is saved by the charming brute Vic Tolson, which marks the start of a friendship that will both define and destroy the two boys' lives. When Vic and Leonard meet again as adults, their dormant childhood friendship erupts into an irresistible physical passion. As the Place crumbles around them, Leonard and Vic pursue a love so powerful it can only end in death.

From "the leading novelist of his generation" (the Daily Telegraph)—a story about marriage, family, and 1 man's 2nd chance At age 47, former playwright Frank Attercliffe lives with 2 of his 5 children in a 4-bedroom apartment on Walton Lane on the outskirts of an English suburb. For the past 3 years, his wife, Sheila, has been living with Maurice, a car dealer who owns a Rolls-Royce, a Bentley, and a Jaguar—a man rumored to have killed 3 people in car accidents. Attercliffe cowrites a weekend football roundup for the local sports column, and after a match, he is introduced to the beautiful actress Phyllis Gardner at his favorite watering hole. That night, however, Sheila comes home, having left Maurice and given up her current lover, Gavin. She wants to move back to Walton Lane with the entire family—but she wants Attercliffe to move out. With its cast of eccentric and endearing characters, including Attercliffe's loquacious...

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize ‘Storey’s fiction ought to . . . secure his reputation as one of the most original writers of his generation.’ - The Guardian ‘The leading novelist of his generation.’ - Daily Telegraph ‘Swift, clean and painful . . . as good as anything he has done.’ - The Times ‘Mr Storey is an absorbing writer, and he captures in a completely believable way the terrible bleakness of Pasmore’s family’s coal-mining town and the bewilderment and anguish of a family falling apart.’ - The New Yorker ‘Remarkable . . . an admirable piece of writing.’ - Boston Globe To all external appearances, Colin Pasmore has a happy life: not yet thirty, with a wife, three children, a nice home, and a good job as a university lecturer, everything seems to be going right. But after he is beset by a recurring nightmare, he begins to experience the terrifying sensation that his whole life is unravelling. He is suddenly unable to bear the presence of friends and family, incapable of touching or communicating with his wife, dissatisfied and even embarrassed by his job. He finds himself looking on in helpless horror, struggling to understand why his entire world is disintegrating around him. . . . Pasmore (1972), David Storey’s fourth novel, won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. This new edition is the first in more than 25 years and features the original jacket art by the author. Storey’s Radcliffe and Saville (winner of the Booker Prize) are also available from Valancourt Books. **

A rugby player finds fame and fortune in a bleak mining town, but he cannot outrun the emptiness he feels inside in Man Booker Prize–winning author David Storey's seminal first novel On Christmas Eve, Arthur breaks his two front teeth. A teammate on the rugby pitch is too slow with a handoff, and instead of catching the ball, Art catches an opponent's foot right in the mouth. When he regains consciousness, the match is almost over, but he keeps playing regardless. Where else would he go? His entire life, Art has only cared about sports and nothing grabs his attention quite like the lightning-fast violence of Rugby League. He knows it could kill him, but it also makes him feel alive. In this hard-bitten Yorkshire mining town, the warriors of the rugby pitch are treated like gods. Through the aggressive sport, Art finds money, friends, and countless women. But when his lust for violence begins to fade, will he have the courage to leave the game...

A successful playwright, painter, and novelist confronts his mortality and the past during a major life crisis in this novel by Man Booker Prize–winning author David Storey Richard Fenchurch has had a long and successful career as a playwright, painter, and novelist. But at age 65, he is coming apart at the seams. Fearing he will do something drastic if he remains alone, Fenchurch's married daughter, Harriet, takes charge of his life. She moves her father from his squalid London apartment to his ancestral mansion, where he courted his 1st wife—Harriet's mother, Bea—whom he met at a Christmas dance. Home again, with ghosts all around, Fenchurch journeys back in time while struggling to maintain his freedom and sanity. Past and present seamlessly intersect through the rich landscape of memory as Fenchurch begins to ruminate on his passionate affair 35 years earlier with his mother-in-law. In spite of their nearly 30-year age difference,...

A miner's daughter leaves home to make a new life in London with a married teacher in this beautiful love story that won the 1961 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize Most of Margaret's family is graveside when they lay her grandfather to rest. Although everyone is in the same place, they are not really together. Margaret descends from Yorkshire coal miners, stoic people who have mastered the art of burying their feelings deep underground. Her relatives may be content to live this way, but Margaret yearns for something more. A secretary at the Coal Board, she gets a glimpse of another life when she visits her brother at his university and a fair-haired art teacher catches her eye. The teacher's name is Howarth; he is married, but that does not stop Margaret from risking everything she has in order to be with him. To escape the oppressive presence of her family, Margaret and Howarth flee to London. At first intoxicated by love, Margaret is soon shocked by what she finds in the...

A wry and deeply affecting novel about a man's ruminations on art and death by the Man Booker Prize–winning author of This Sporting Life Matthew Maddox is an art historian and professor emeritus at the Drayburgh School of Fine Art. Nearing 70, his 3 sons are grown and his ex-wife, Charlotte, has remarried. After a failed suicide attempt in front of a moving train, Maddox attends art therapy classes in order to find new meaning in his life. Although he is isolated, Maddox does have his champions. Simone, his lover and partner, is returning shortly from an analysts' conference in Vienna. She has her own baggage, but Simone feels responsible for Maddox. Others who genuinely care about Maddox include his former mentor Daniel Viklund, whose wartime past fascinates Maddox; his older sister, Sarah; and his younger brother, Paul. There is also Eric Taylor, once his most promising student, now a convicted murderer, in whom Maddox sees echoes of his...

A 17-year-old is sent to the country to live with his much-older half-brother and falls into an unexpected affair in this novel by Man Booker Prize–winning author David Storey The narrator of Storey's 11th novel is an angst-ridden 17-year-old who shares intimate details of his life in the form of memos written to himself. Born in Beverly Hills, California, Richard "Rick" Audlin now lives with his film producer half-brother, Gerry—who is 35-years his senior—in a rambling old Victorian house in Hampstead. Gerry's 2nd wife, Martha, is a former film star who has been committed to a mental institution. When Gerry has to go abroad on business, he trundles Rick off to the home of his long-estranged sibling, James (Rick's other half-brother), who lives on the outskirts of a remote village and is the author of 7 unpublished crime novels. It is James's wife, Clare, who meets Rick at the station. Flirty and attractive, she soon draws Rick into an illicit...

An art teacher searches for meaning in a strange town as his wife spirals into madness in this stunning novel from Man Booker Prize–winning author David Storey Colin Freestone had not planned to live in northern England. The people here are so passionate and raw that he does not expect to ever understand them or feel at ease. But when his wife, Yvonne, fell sick, she would only accept psychiatric care if she could be near her mother, so Colin had no choice but to move north. As Yvonne wastes away in the hospital, sinking deeper and deeper into a terrifying and incomprehensible madness, Colin tries to make sense of his strange surroundings. He may live here now, but he will never call it home. To pass the time, he takes a job teaching art at a second-rate college that is headed by a nutrition-crazed dean. Colin makes friends, meets women, and plays tennis, but nothing can distract him from the fact that his wife is slowly dying and he is helpless...