Martin, I heard an item on the Today programme about Sillitoe and whether or not he was the last AYM still alive and how impeccable his sub working-class background was . . . illiterate father who often beat up the family, not much education himself having left school at 14 followed by work in the bike factory in Nottingham etc. How his work had been translated into French, where it was likened to Camus. It was claimed that neither John Osborne, Keith Waterhouse or Stan Barstow could quite match him because they were grammar school boys who didn't work all day at a lathe and spend their nights in the auto-didactic pursuit of reading impenetrable authors. :-)

Sorry to hear this. In his hono(u)r, I will move "Long Distance..." in the TBR pile, esp now I know it's short stories...

I have long been an admirer of his work and am sorry to hear of his passing. Still, 82 is a good age. He will be long remembered.

Keith Waterhouse went only a few months ago and now Sillitoe. Sad. He was amazing - to break out and become a writer from a background like that! And, as Vee says, he wasn't a Grammar school boy.

The handle 'Angry Young Men', however, is a strange one. Osborne's Jimmy Porter was the original, of course, and he certainly was very angry - mostly for little reason, to my mind. And I suppose Arthur Seaton was quite angry. But Barstow's Vic Brown from 'A Kind of Loving' wasn't; nor was Waterhouse's Billy Liar; nor Joe Lampton from Braine's 'Room at the Top' (I can't remember about David Storey's 'This Sporting Life' ). Mostly they were, though, working class and of their time: the rebellion and breaking-out of the young in post-war Britai which was restrictive and constrictive in most ways.

I'm wondering if the Angry Young Men had a parallel movement during the same time period in the USA. I'm thinking of the "Beat Generation", with writers Kerouac, poet Ginsberg, et al. Kerouac was certainly working class. I think some of the others were, as well,--- hardly your "Ivy League" material! Anyway, these authors were disillusioned with post WW II values and the American culture of their time.

Mary,

We had the 'beat' generation here, too, but it was very slightly earlier (perhaps early-mid 1950s) than the Angry Young Men and a little different. Young men went around with bushy beards and sandals, dressed scruffily, lived carelessly and freely, called themselves 'Beatniks' (lots of things had 'nik' as a suffix, like 'Sputnik') and mostly had 'literary', especially poetry, pretensions. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think there were any female Beatniks.....

They were very good though, those you mention above: Kerouac's 'On the Road', for example, and Ginsberg's poetry. I can't think of any poets among the Angry Young Men, though Silletto wrote poetry. They are famous for their novels and plays.