RIP Alan Sillitoe

On Sunday, British writer Alan Sillitoe passed away at 82 years of age. He was perhaps best-known for his story “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner.”

A generous graduate school professor turned me on to Sillitoe’s work when I reached that inevitiable point that male writers seem to reach where they get pissed off. I was working a shit ton of jobs to pay for school and some amount of class anger must have started to show in my short stories. The professor told me to check out Sillitoe’s work and figured I would identify (or at least recognize) some of the characteristics of the Angry Young Man movement in Britain.

I ultimately came to enjoy all of Sillitoe’s stories. Sad news about his passing, but as good an excuse as any to revisit his work.