Working Class and Twenty-First-Century British Fiction

Phil O’Brien has written on working-class fiction and theatre for Textual Practice and Literature & History and in Accelerated Times: British Literature in Transition (Cambridge University Press) and Working-Class Writing: Theory & Practice (Palgrave). He is secretary of the Raymond Williams Society, on the editorial board of Key Words, and editor of Culture & Politics (Verso) by Raymond Williams. He has taught at the University of Manchester and Liverpool John Moores University. This is his first book.

‘What does it mean to be working class in the twenty-first century, decades after industrial jobs and strong unions have given way to low-wage service jobs, contingent labour, and precarity? This book traces how deindustrialisation literature wrestles with this question, revealing how class itself is being reimagined and reshaped by economic restructuring and neoliberalism – while also introducing readers to a range of engaging and entertaining books worth reading’.Sherry Lee Linkon, Georgetown University, USA.‘This book makes a compelling case for the intersections between class and contemporary literature. It brings the academic study of working-class writing bang up to date’.Nicola Wilson, University of Reading, UK.

• Introduction: Class, Culture, PoliticsPart One: Mapping DeindustrialisationChapter One: David Peace and the Strike Novel: Conflict, History, Knowledge Chapter Two: Gordon Burn and Working-Class Nostalgia: Region, Form, CommodificationChapter Three: Anthony Cartwright and the Deindustrial Novel: Realism, Place, ClassPart Two: Resisting DemonisationChapter Four: Ross Raisin and Class Mourning: Masculinity, Work, PrecarityChapter Five: Jenni Fagan and the Revolting Class: Gender, Stigma, ResistanceChapter Six: Sunjeev Sahota and the Racialised Worker: Class, Race, ViolenceConclusion: Class Matters