A Stinging Delight: A Memoir

(Hardback, Main)

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Description

The third son of a coalminer, David Storey takes us from his tough upbringing in Wakefield, to being 'sold' to Leeds Rugby League Club, to his escape to the Slade School of Art and his life in post-war London. He describes shocking scenes in the seventeen deprived East End schools in which he taught. He documents the childhood death of his eldest brother, addressing much of the memoir to him and exploring how this relates to his own sometimes paralysing depression, which haunted most of his life. And yet, a prolific and celebrated writer, he recalls heady spells in New York, close relationships in the theatre with Joycelyn Herbert, Ralph Richardson and Lindsay Anderson, early success with This Sporting Life, and winning the Booker Prize for his novel Saville.

Reviews

An enviable playwright, a prodigious novelist and a lovely man. -- Alan Bennett

David Storey was touched by fire...In this blunt, spare, elegant and unremittingly honest book he writes of his lifelong melancholia and despair...You marvel that he was able to suffer such pain and live such an astonishingly productive artistic life...It's an agonizing testament to his talent and his character. -- Richard Eyre

A beautiful, revealing memoir from one of England's iconic writers...He'll never be forgotten, especially not after the magic to be found in these pages. -- Andrew O'Hagan

David Storey's trademark combination of strength and sensitivity is a stinging delight. -- Richard Bean

Full in equal parts of vividness and pathos. -- New Statesman

Perhaps his most remarkable and gripping work. -- Spectator

A Stinging Delight is a gripping, sad but very worthy book. -- British Theatre Guide

A Stinging Delight is mesmerising...its abiding quality is, in the end, a kind of fearlessness. -- Times

Deeply moving...A Stinging Delight is an engrossing memoir. -- Independent

David Storey is our best, most original and satisfying playwright. -- Lindsay Anderson

Author Bio

David Storey was born in Wakefield in 1933. He studied at the Slade School of Art. He wrote fifteen plays including In Celebration, Home and The Changing Room; and eleven novels, including This Sporting Life, which was made into a film starring Richard Harris. His work won many accolades including the Macmillan Fiction Award, the Somerset Maugham Award, the Faber Memorial Prize and, in 1976, the Booker Prize for Saville. He died in 2017.