- Paperback: 160 pages
- Publisher: Bloodaxe Books Ltd; New edition edition (1 Jun 1990)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1852241276
- ISBN-13: 978-1852241278
- Product Dimensions: 20.8 x 13.6 x 1.2 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 309,880 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
'He was indeed the nearest anybody ever got to Charlie Chaplin in print...the sentences skid and dance and hop on one leg or take a custard pie right on the chin or duck and weave and leave you gasping behind. But he is more for the wry smile than the belly laugh'. This was how Sid Chaplin described Jack Common, author of two of the best working-class novels of the 20th century, and 'the best prose writer to come from the North-East of England'. "Kiddar's Luck", his first novel, was a commercial flop when it first appeared. It has since been called a 'neglected masterpiece', remarkable for its 'linguistic mastery and insights into the lives of working people, free of illusions and false heroics' (Richard Kelly in "The Independent"). Jack Common was born in 1903 in Heaton, Newcastle, and grew up in the terraced streets backing onto the railway yards where his father worked.The boy Willie Kiddar in Common's account of a Newcastle childhood is a thinly veiled self-portrait, and "Kiddar's Luck" tells the story of his first 14 years, from conception on a Sunday afternoon to leaving school during the First World War. At 25 he moved to London, and worked as assistant editor on "The Adelphi" during the 30s, when George Orwell was his friend and literary mentor, later praising his essay collection "The Freedom of the Streets" (1938) as 'the authentic voice of the ordinary working man, the man who might infuse a new decency into the control of affairs if only he could get there, but who never seems to get much further than the trenches, the sweatshop and the jail'. V.S. Pritchett called it the most influential book of his life. "Kiddar's Luck" was first published in 1951 (and its sequel, "The Ampersand", in 1954). After the commercial failure of his two novels, Jack Common lived in poverty for much of the rest of his life, and died in 1968.
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1 review
Touching, amusing and down to earth
29 April 2001
Format:Paperback
Kiddar's Luck is an autobiography of a working-class man from Newcastle which focuses on his childhood. I was fairly new to autobiographies and Kiddar's Luck fulfilled all my expectations of the genre. It gives an interesting insight into working-class life without being too sentimental and does not alienate the reader from his experiences. There is something for all readers to idenitify with, male or female. I particulary felt drawn to his descriptions of playing on the streets as this was the only place he had to go. There are many amusing parts to the book of the antics that him and his gang get up to. There are also more serious issues raised about the lack of oppurtunities available to him, as a working-class boy eith a very limited education. Essentially though it is an enjoyable, easy read and gives an interesting historical insight into working-class culture at the beginning of the twentieth-century.
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