Could The New Jane Austen Be a Man?

March 8, 2011 - PRLog -- In his fast-approaching 50 years, A R Grundy has lived in 22 homes in 13 different areas of England. Essentially of Middle Class stock, he has nevertheless, through wildly fluctuating financial circumstances, lived many different lives and has met, befriended and been horrified by many of the people he has encountered along the way. Writing about these characters began 18 years ago but it was only recently that Adam Grundy (for, a man, he is) came to fully understand what it was he was writing about. Aborted earlier novels had no ‘voice’, nothing to say. They were light, entertaining books you might enjoy reading on the beach. But they had no substance.

His first published novel, ‘Just Below The Surface’, allows the reader, at one level, to engage in the stories of ten characters whose lives are affected by one of their number making a seemingly ordinary change in her circumstances. Indeed, at a superficial level, it could easily be read as an absorbing, humorous canter through the lives of Middle Class English folk, culminating in bridges mended, illusions shattered and newly-discovered love. But take a deeper look; tap into the rich seam of empathetic recognition and the reader is taken on a journey through emotions of every hue. Unwittingly stifled angst, love, feistiness, callousness; in Middle Class England suppressed emotion is elegantly extinguished with a nice cup of tea and a forced smile, a veil of conservative etiquette, morals and upbringing.

The Middle Classes are either fiercely proud of their Working Class backgrounds or else striving to touch the hem of the swirling skirts of the Upper Classes. Seldom are they satisfied – or proud – to be simply Middle Class.

A R Grundy’s insightful debut novel will have you laughing, crying, sympathising and spitting vitriol. You’ll be surprised, shocked, amused and thoroughly entertained.

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Author of fiction. Having lived in 22 homes in 13 areas of England, I draw on a wealth of characters I have met along the way, intertwining stories that reveal the true person hidden by social and moral façades, often extinguished by a cup of tea!