Working Class Fiction

Yep i'd go with Bukowski. Also the Beats, Kerouac & Burroughs for instance. George Orwell for something British maybe. There's so much that would fall into this category

John Fante

'No Mean City' (1935) by Alexander McArthur - razors and slums in pre-war Glasgow. Amazing stuff. 'The Busconductor Hines' (1984) by James Kelman. I've recommended Kelman several times in the past and for me, this is one of the great post-war novels. It is about Robert Hines who lives in a cold, miserable no-bedroomed tenement flat in Glasgow with his wife and child, dreaming about a life which he cannot have in Australia. He hates his boss, he drinks himself stupid, he does all the wrong things and he has a wild, anarchic imagination. It is very, very funny and deeply humane. Kelman is a giant.

'Kes' by Barry Hines is probably a little dated now, but the themes of bullying, intimidation, alienation, growing up in a poor family in a tough environment are as true today as they were when this was written. The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner by Alan Sillitoe. An astounding short story about futility. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning also by Sillitoe - brill!

i really rate John King, author of "the football factory"," white trash", "England Away"......has a bit of a football theme but a modern take of working class.... also the maestro, James Kelman.....he rocks...

Pig by Andrew Cowan Morvern Callar by Alan Warner Gagarin and I by Stephen Blanchard Five Boys by Mick Jackson

Cannery Row by Steinbeck - most of the book deals with very ordinary working folk and their lives, but gets into the small beauties and pleasures of their world and the dignity that they can have.

There's a sequel also: Sweet Thursday. Lovely books, funny and heart-warming.

Steinbeck is fantastic! Andrew, have you read Tortilla Flat?

Okay, Ken. What on earth are you doing here?

Charles Bukowski - he writes about menial jobs and makes them interesting, which is no mean feat. Bastard Out Of Carolina by Dorothy Allison Sister Josephine by Joanna Traynor

A little dated, but John Steinbeck, Grapes of Wrath. Goes much further than the working man's dilemma I think. It defines the struggle within the working class to maintain a status quo when things are bad and the changes that can occur as a result of circumstances beyond control.

I'd second Bukowski: "Factotum" and "Post Office". "The Madolescents" by Chrissie Glazebrook. "Blood Brothers" by Willie Russell - readable, though a play. The same goes for Pinter's "The Room", "Night School", "The Caretaker" and "The Birthday Party". Also "The Pope's Wedding" by Edward Bond.

There is a happy land by Keith Waterhouse

Society Within by Courttia Newland

Evelyn Waugh. I jest, of course. George Eliot's Adam Bede paints an amazing picture of rural working men and women; you can't beat Chekhov for peasant dreams.

Roddy Doyle, Alan Warner, Emmerdale Farm script writers?