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jenn756's review
4.0
I enjoyed these short stories set in Northern England from the 1950s to the 1980s. It has the feeling of several compilations lumped together for there is a large number of stories – 30 or more. I enjoyed them for being well-written and their sense of time and place. The world Stan Barstow writes about has long gone – smoky taprooms, jobs for life down at the local factory, housewives and cloth-caps and living your life out in the same town. All gone….as has the community that held it all together and the social rules and restrictions that frustrated the young.
Stan Barstow is famous for his angry social realism that burst on the scene in the early `60s, but in the `Likes of Us’ he’s become history himself. Its true some of the stories end somewhat abruptly, they have the feeling of the first chapter of a longer novel and they could have done with sharper editing. He reaches as far as the 1980s but by that time Barstow generally takes the viewpoint of an older person reflecting on their life. There is a quiet melancholic edge to many of them, no melodrama or sensationalism, just voices talking and Barstow relating their stories with sympathy.
Stan Barstow is famous for his angry social realism that burst on the scene in the early `60s, but in the `Likes of Us’ he’s become history himself. Its true some of the stories end somewhat abruptly, they have the feeling of the first chapter of a longer novel and they could have done with sharper editing. He reaches as far as the 1980s but by that time Barstow generally takes the viewpoint of an older person reflecting on their life. There is a quiet melancholic edge to many of them, no melodrama or sensationalism, just voices talking and Barstow relating their stories with sympathy.
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