Saville

by David Storey

Genres: Literary Fiction; Book Prizes & Literary Awards

Synopsis

'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

'Mesmerically readable, Saville is a revelation. It is alive with light and air and a kind of perpetual motion.' - Michael Ratcliffe, The Times

'Again and again I found myself paying Storey the reader's finest compliment of saying, "This is the way it has to be, because this is the way it really is." If you are looking for an intellectual and artistic honesty, a patient thoughtfulness and detailed insight into other lives, a controlled drama of ordinary and extraordinary people, this novel will delight and move you.' - C.J. Driver, The Guardian

'Saville is not one word too long. It was worth the ten years it took to write for the result of this industry is a clarity of style and a purity of design. An epic narrative, crowded, naturalistic and riveting.' - Valerie Jenkins, Evening Standard

'Not once during its 506 pages did the familiar man with the stop-watch intervene to challenge my total immersion in the life of Colin Saville.' - David Caute, New Statesman

'This minutely focused novel of childhood and growth is David Storey's most ambitious book so far. His previous novels seem in retrospect to be mere ranging shots or flanking attacks: this is the assault on the stronghold. . . . a major achievement.' - Eric Korn, Times Literary Supplement

'No one has written of this classic dilemma with such detail and penetration as we find in Saville, nor has any previous novel so totally described a working-class family in transition during the real revolution of the forties and fifties.' - Ronald Blythe, The Listener

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Release date: September 30, 2013

Publisher: Valancourt Books

Print pages: 562