Stewkey Blues

by D.J. Taylor

Some of the characters in Stewkey Blues have lived in Norfolk all their lives. Others are short-term residents or passage migrants. Whether young or old, self-confident or ground-down, local or blow-in, all of them are reaching uneasy compromises with the world they inhabit and the landscape in which that life takes place.

Unknown Binding

Published January 1, 2022

About the author

David John Taylor (born 1960) is a critic, novelist and biographer. After attending school in Norwich, he read Modern History at St John's College, Oxford, and has received the 2003 Whitbread Biography Award for his life of George Orwell.

He lives in Norwich and contributes to The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The Independent, New Statesman and The Spectator among other publications.

He is married to the novelist Rachel Hore, and together they have three sons.

Reviews

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 4 out of 5]

DJ Taylor has twice been longlisted for the Booker (in 1998 when the longlist was a less distinct concept, and in 2011) and also won the Whitbread (now Costa) Biography award in 2003 for his biography of George Orwell. He has also published a short story collection with the Norwich based small press – Galley Beggar (a compilation of various stories written published over many years), and this is his second collection is published by the North Norfolk (Cromer) based small press – Salt.

Small literary trivia observation I have made: the overall Costa was won that year by the phenomenon that was “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time” but more interesting was that the First Novel award was won by “Vernon God Little” – which a few months previously had, rather controversially, won the Booker Prize – a decision regarded as beyond discussion by four judges and with bemusement by the fifth – a certain DJ Taylor.

On the topic of biography – the author’s own is very relevant to this book: educated at the prestigious Norwich School (one of the very oldest in the country), studied at Oxford before eventually returning to Norwich with his bestselling novelist wife Rachel Hore and a lot of additional background to this collection is set out in this Eastern Daily Press article (https://www.edp24.co.uk/lifestyle/dj-...) where he explains that the collection unlike his first was written as a more coherent and specific collection during lockdown – a lockdown which (via food bank deliveries) introduced him to areas of Norwich he had not visited for years. He also explains his love of the Breckland area (the area of my own childhood).

This is a collection which ranges: over time (from the 1970 of the author’s late childhood and youth right up to pre COVID); across Norfolk (from the Brecks, to the North Norfolk Coast, to the various postcodes and districts of Norwich); and perhaps most interestingly across class (with three particular strands being the Oxford-aspiring private school educated “elite” of Norwich, the denizens of the rougher parts of Norwich and the Brecks, and the urban middle class relocating to the county - of which it has to be said the first seems the most authentic writing).

Overall as the author has said it is a love letter to Norfolk – and as that is my birth county, location of almost all my extended family and location of my second home – it is one I found naturally interesting.

But as much as Norfolk is home, short stories as a literary form is an alien territory for me (I much prefer the novella and even the well crafted novelistic epic) – and so it is perhaps more impressive and notable that I really enjoyed the way that this collection was written – both in the individual stories and in the way they gelled together, as well as for the sense of wistfulness/melancholia with which many of the stories end and which is captured in the title.

[Martin Brabazon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not normally a fan of short stories but maybe I've just not read enough of them. This collection may have converted me.

It is a collection of stories set in Norfolk and features whole lives, brief episodes, and mere snapshots within the lives of a range of Norfolk characters, some native to the county, some newcomers, and some holidaymakers or visitors for the day.

Each of them shows that Norfolk people are - much like its geography - varied and beautiful despite appearing flat, dull, and uninteresting on first impressions.

D J Taylor's Stewkey Blues maybe Norfolk's answer to James Joyce's 'Dubliners'. My only real complaint is that it could have done with a better proofreader - the regularity of typos was at times jarring.

[Colin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The stories in Stewkey Blues are some of the most enjoyable I’ve read in a long while. All fifteen stories are set on Taylor’s home turf of Norfolk and Norwich, an area I know well, having grown up there in the Sixties and Seventies. Whether he’s focusing on a city housing estate, the tourist-friendly North Norfolk coast, or the remote wilds of Breckland or the Fens, Taylor expertly nails the spirit of the place and the characters who inhabit it, locals, tourists and incomers alike. The stories are vivid with wit, sympathy and character, each one full of life and incident. There’s not a dud story in the book and it’s worthy of the highest recommendation.

[Dora · Rating 2 out of 5]

I bought this book on a thoroughly wet and wild afternoon in Cromer. I ran in, trying to get in the warmth and away from the water running down the pavements. I was thrilled to see the title “Stewkey Blues Stories” and imagined it was full of stories about Stiffkey folk. I never read the blurb on the back of books anymore because they always over-egg the contents and I like to make my own mind up.

I thought I might put it away to enjoy on my holidays in May as a special treat. What better than reading tales from a village I know well as I grew up just a stones throw away and, in fact, still live very close by.


However, I was impatient and started on the book and I am so glad I didn’t save it for my holiday because I would have been disappointed. The Stewkey Blues story was mildly interesting and I would have enjoyed reading more about Granville. The rest of them were quite boring and most of them ended with me thinking “what was that all about?” I have nothing against short stories and absolutely love those by Alan Bennett particularly. Over the years I have read them again and again and they are just as fresh years later.

So sadly it’s just a score of 2 from me.

[Peter Swan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very disappointed with most of the stories. Some odd, others unconvincing. Descriptive parts of the book well handled but characters and their stories, particularly the endings, left me puzzled and disinclined to read the author's other fiction.

[HannBC · Rating 1 out of 5]

I stopped reading not far into the book because I did not like the characters.