John Braine

John Gerard Braine (13 April 1922 – 28 October 1986)[1] was an English novelist. Braine is usually listed among the angry young men, a loosely defined group of English writers who emerged on the literary scene in the 1950s.

For the English footballer, see Jonny Brain.

John Braine in 1962

Biography

John Braine was born in the Westgate area of central Bradford, West Riding of Yorkshire. The family later moved to the suburb of Thackley on the northern edge of the city. Braine left St. Bede's Grammar School at 16 and worked in a shop, a laboratory and a factory before becoming, after the war, a librarian in Bingley, a small town five miles up the Aire Valley .

Although he wrote 12 works of fiction, Braine is chiefly remembered today for his first novel, Room at the Top (1957). The novel was conceived when he was being treated for tuberculosis in a hospital near the Yorkshire Dales town of Grassington. He stated that his favourite author was Guy de Maupassant and that Room at the Top was based on Bel Ami, but that "the critics didn't pick it up".

Room at the Top was turned into a successful 1959 film, with Laurence Harvey as Joe Lampton and featuring an Oscar–winning performance by Simone Signoret. In September 2012, BBC television broadcast a two-part dramatisation that had been delayed because of a dispute over copyright. Matthew McNulty was in the lead role.

After achieving literary success, Braine moved to the south of England, living for a time in Woking. He wrote several more novels, including Life at the Top, a sequel to Room at the Top. His 1968 novel The Crying Game is set in London and captures some of the atmosphere of the 'Swinging Sixties'. (It is not related to the 1992 film of the same name). His 1974 book Writing a Novel was a guide for aspiring novelists.

Braine was mildly left-wing in his youth, but like his contemporaries (and fellow "angry young men") Kingsley Amis and John Wain, he later moved to the political right, and supported America's involvement in the Vietnam War. In 1967, Braine, Robert Conquest, Amis and several others signed a controversial letter to The Times titled "Backing for U.S. Policies in Vietnam", supporting the US government in Vietnam.[2]

Braine was married to Helen Wood and had four children. They separated in the early 1980s with Wood moving to Shropshire with her two youngest children.[3] He died from a gastric haemorrhage in 1986 at age 64.[1]

Select bibliography

Fiction

Non-fiction
  • A Personal Record (Monday Club, 1968)
  • Writing a Novel (1974)
  • J. B. Priestley (1978)

References
  1. "Braine, John Gerard (1922–1986), writer | Oxford Dictionary of National Biography". oxforddnb.com. 23 September 2004. Retrieved 26 March 2018.
  2. John Wakeman, World Authors 1950–1970 : a companion volume to Twentieth Century Authors. New York : H. W. Wilson Company, 1975. ISBN 0824204190. (pp. 444-48).
  3. "John Braine's fall from the top". The Yorkshire Post. 27 October 2006. Retrieved 26 March 2018.
  4. See the review at DVDCompare, of the 2010 UK DVD release: DVDCompare review
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