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Contemporary novel where main character isn't middle class

71 replies

antimatter · 15/01/2015 14:40

Sorry for the title but having started 4th book in a row with main character being middle class, white, very well educated....

It made me thinking - haven't read for a while (until yesterday when started from recommendation on another thread Flowers for Algernon which is also classed as SF and published in 1959) a contemporary novel where there were a non-middle class main characters.

Please suggest some great books I can choose in that category.

OP posts:
LadyWellian · 15/01/2015 16:23

Oops, should have refreshed before posting Blush

BeCool · 15/01/2015 16:24

A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

Janet Frame - An Autobiography (collection) (also published as "An Angel At My Table" in 2008 - confusinginly "AQn Angel At My Table" was one volume of her autobiography) Not sure if it classed as contemporary. Janet Frame born 1924. Not a novel - but a fab read regardless.

BeCool · 15/01/2015 16:25

Are half the characters in "The Help" including the narrator exceedingly middle class?

Pointlessfan · 15/01/2015 16:27

Yes they are, becool but the story is really about their black maids in the deep south and the relationship between the two groups of women.

tumbletumble · 15/01/2015 16:31

Call The Midwife

MabelSideswipe · 15/01/2015 16:34

Don't know how you feel about crime novels but Faithful Place by Tana French is really good. It is about a Dublin police officer from a working class family who, when a teenager, made a plan to elope with his girlfriend. His girlfriend went missing the night they planned to leave and he has been estranged from most of his family since.

Then her suitcase is found in an abandoned house in the street his parents still live on and he is drawn back to discover what happened to her.

Very good writing about that claustrophobic atmosphere of living in overcrowded conditions and also about living with an alcoholic father.

hackmum · 15/01/2015 16:37

Funny Girl by Nick Hornby - I do keep recommending this one!

And I would definitely second Small Island.

skolastica · 15/01/2015 16:38

Contemporary as in contemporary setting or as in contemporary writer?

tumbletumble · 15/01/2015 16:40

Shantaram
Papillon

MabelSideswipe · 15/01/2015 16:42

In Starter for Ten by David Nicholls the main character is working class.

Longbourn by Jo Baker tells the story of Pride and Prejudice from the perspective of the servants - I loved it!

museumum · 15/01/2015 16:42

Morven Caller

ShatnersBassoon · 15/01/2015 16:43

Elizabeth is Missing. I'm reading it now, enjoying it very much so far Smile

LoblollyBoy · 15/01/2015 16:45

The Restraint of Beasts by Magnus Mills. Protagonists are fencers. (Who erect fences for a living, not play fight with swords)

SunnyBaudelaire · 15/01/2015 16:47

good grief you are the first person I everr met who has read that book!
Magnus used to drink in our local pub so we all read it, being very proud of him. Then we found that half the dialogue had been lifted from him earwigging !!

ShatnersBassoon · 15/01/2015 16:49

The Bateman books. Very funny.

LoblollyBoy · 15/01/2015 16:55

I loved it. I have read all his books. Some feature more middle class characters and some are so allegorical that the characters are classless. I also like 'The Maintenance of Headway' (bus drivers) but I wouldn't pick it as a recommendation, it's for those who like that sort of thing.

lionheart70 · 15/01/2015 16:56

The Panoptican by Jenni Fagan
Clay by Melissa Harrison (There isn't exactly a main character; it's a study of a park and the people who use it - all classes/backgrounds - much better than I am making it sound here)
The Invisible Ones by Stef Penny
The Road Home by Rose Tremain

SunnyBaudelaire · 15/01/2015 16:57

oh really? Lol he was a bus driver before he was published. I will have to look out for it/

Seriouslyffs · 15/01/2015 17:08

The White Family Maggie Gee
Oranges are not the only fruit- Jeanette Wintersson not contemporary setting but modern iyswim
Fantasy/ dystopia swerves the 'reading about my life' dilemma. I've recently read The Girl with all the Gifts and Book of Strange New Things; The Sisters Brothers mentioned up thread is great.

MonstrousRatbag · 15/01/2015 17:09

What genres do you like and dislike? Do you want books set in the UK?
A random selection:

What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn. Protagonist is small girl;

Under The Skin by Michael Faber. Central figure is an alien. Do read this eerie, completely original book. It's just been made into a well-received film, no idea if it's faithful to the novel.

(1) My Once Upon a Time and (2) Some Kind of Black by Diran Adebayo. Coming of age story about Londoners of Nigerian origin and an inventive private investigator story with supernatural/magic realist elements.

(1) Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned and (2) Walkin' the Dog by Walter Mosely (the Socrates Fortlow novels-these are not crime novels)

A Shadow of Myself by Mike Phillips for which the Amazon summary is:

"Attending a film festival in Prague, black documentary film maker Joseph Coker is approached by a complete stranger claiming to be his brother. George, who has been brought up in East Germany by his Russian mother, tells Joseph that they share the same father: Kofi Coker, a Ghanaian now living in London. Joseph’s reluctant acceptance of this relationship propels him into a nightmare world of intrigue and murder that threatens not just his identity, but his life.

And behind the two sons is the enigmatic figure of Kofi himself, an idealistic African whose time in Kruschev’s Moscow led to betrayal and planted the seeds of tragedy in the next generation.

Both thriller and love story, A Shadow of Myself is set against the backdrop of post-Cold War Europe, exploring the impact of the Third World on its future. Gripping and moving, it follows its characters from the fifties to the present day, as they move between the clashing ideologies of East and West."

SunshineBossaNova · 15/01/2015 17:13

Any of the 'Rivers of London' series by David Aaronovitch.

7to25 · 15/01/2015 17:13

Swing Hammer Swing

SunshineBossaNova · 15/01/2015 17:14

Sorry, Ben Aaronovitch!

DuchessofMalfi · 15/01/2015 17:41

Here's a few I can think of (apologies if they've already been mentioned :))

A Man Called Ove - Frederik Backman
Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch (and rest of series)
The Report - Jessica Francis Kane
Stephanie Plum series - One for the Money etc - Janet Evanovich
The Lie - Helen Dunmore
Brighton Rock - Graham Greene (maybe not contemporary enough?)
A Life Like Other People's - Alan Bennett (memoir)
The Story of Before - Susan Stairs
The Mammy - Brendan O'Carroll (basis for Mrs Brown's Boys, but not bad)
The Spinning Heart - Donal Ryan
The Thing About December - Donal Ryan
The Color Purple - Alice Walker

antimatter · 16/01/2015 08:50

I loved "A Man Called Ove". I listened to it just before Christmas.

It doesn't have to be set in UK - is more about variation of the topics and subjects.

I am reading Atomised by Houellebecq right now, French middle-class ... Grin

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