Storey, David (Malcolm) (1933– ), novelist and playwright, the son of a Yorkshire miner; he was educated at the Slade School of Fine Art. He worked as professional footballer, teacher, farm worker, and erector of show tents, acquiring a variety of experience which is evident in his works. His first novel,
This Sporting Life (1960), describes the ambitions and passions of a young working man, Arthur Machin, a Rugby League player who becomes emotionally involved with his landlady. This was followed by other novels including
Flight into Camden (1960), about the unhappy affair of a miner's daughter with a married teacher;
Radcliffe (1963), a sombre, violent, Lawrentian novel about class conflict, the Puritan legacy, and destructive homosexual passion; and
Saville (1976,
Booker Prize), an epic set in a South Yorkshire mining village. Meanwhile Storey had also established himself as a playwright, with such works as
In Celebration (1969);
The Contractor (1970);
Home (1970), set in a mental home;
The Changing Room (1971), again using Rugby League as a setting;
Life Class (1974), set in an art college; and
Mother's Day (1976), a violent black comedy set on a housing estate. Both plays and novels show a preoccupation with social mobility and the mental disturbance it frequently appears to cause, and an interesting and challenging combination of documentary naturalism with a sense of the symbolic and unspoken. Later works include the plays
Sisters (1978) and
The March on Russia (1989) and
Present Times (1984), a novel. A collection of poems,
Storey's Lives, appeared in 1992.
