Just Finished Reading: Rebel Writers – The Accidental Feminists by Celia Brayfield (FP: 2019) [246pp] 

I’d heard of a group of male authors in the 50’s and 60’s called The Angry Young Men (writers such as Stan Barstow, John Braine, John Osborne and Alan Sillitoe amongst others) and I even have some, typically unread, books by them but I had never heard about the ‘Angry Young Women’ who were their contemporaries. Of course, much was made of the men’s efforts and many column inches appeared in the papers discussing their new, radical, ‘kitchen sink drama’ style of writing featured between the pages of a book or on the BBC’s Play of the Week. The women, and often very young women, were seen as more exotic and not a little transgressive – becoming published authors in their TEENS and writing about poverty, sex, abortion (illegal at that time) and contraception (difficult to obtain until the advent of the Pill and even then, only initially available to married women). In some cases, most notably with Edna O’Brien, their books were vilified and, in some cases, actively banned for years after initial publication. Even a successful print run had its own problems attached – from media pressure, fame (however brief) and the fact that the youngest authors had to have their financial affairs countersigned by their husbands or fathers.  

What these women authors chronicled – although they were singularly unaware of it at the time – was a radical change in British life as old the certainties of their parent’s generation gave way to the more radical, more free and more open 1950’s and 1960’s. They brought, intentionally or not, many of the daily problems experienced by women, and especially working-class women, into the public (and middle-class) domain which inevitably raised questions about solutions of poverty, single parenthood, divorce, childcare, prostitution, the legalisation of abortion, homosexuality, race issues and much more. These authors – both men and women – introduced a new perspective into modern literature: from the bottom looking up rather than from the top (or middle) looking down or, all too often, simply ignoring conditions that were long considered ‘beneath’ them. It was quite a revelation for everyone. 

I’d come across this book (or at least the cover!) some time ago when searching for works on rebels, so when I saw it going cheap in my favourite Indie bookshop picked it up as at least potentially interesting. I’m so glad I did. Not only did I learn a great deal about these authors – only one (Edna O’Brien) I’d tried before – but also about the times they wrote about. Although I hadn’t actually heard of many of the authors before, I had come across much of their output in movie adaptation or in play form on TV such as ‘The L-shaped Room’, ‘A Taste of Honey’, ‘Up the Junction’, ‘Poor Cow’ and ‘Georgy Girl’. What made an already interesting subject even more so was the excellent writing by the author who melded together the lives of the authors themselves, the times they were writing in (and about), the on-going social upheaval they witnessed and helped along, the reactions of critics and the reading public (plus both politicians and churchmen) to their output and much else perfectly. It was all quite fascinating! If you have any interest in this radical period of British literature and theatre or just in post-War Britain and the emergence of the ‘Swinging Sixties’ this is a definite recommendation. 

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