“Sadly
apt, farcically funny . . . Looks and
Smiles' understatement, which captures all that’s wrong in our predicament,
goes hand in hand with humor, fun and tenderness. A very good novel.” —Mary
Cosh, The Times
“Hines
succeeds in showing, subtly and unsentimentally, the easy slide from economic
deprivation into crime.” —Carol Rumens, The
Observer
“As
ever, Hines brings a real political understanding to bear on his subject.” —New Statesman
“Looks and Smiles is a book that, more
than any other, encapsulates the gloominess of Britain in the early 1980s. To reread
it, as I did to prepare it for the printer, is to find a shoebox full of old
black and white photographs, fan them across a table and see the enormous
difference between what you thought it was like back then and what it really
was, such is the authenticity.” —Mark Hodkinson, in No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy: Memoirs of a Working-Class Reader
Praise for The Gamekeeper
“Simultaneously everyday and extraordinary.” —The Baffler
“[The
Gamekeeper] slyly evolves into implied criticism of the power imbalance
between working-class George and the aristocratic Duke. Hines skillfully writes
in the tradition of such North England writers as Alan Sillitoe and Keith
Waterhouse. This offers a convincing take on the strictures of class.” —Publisher’s Weekly
“Hines has a
keen eye for nature, and his prose is at its finest when describing Purse’s
adventures on the lush landscapes, especially his interactions with animals.” —Kirkus Reviews
“The purpose of [the gamekeeper’s] life is absurd . . . Marginally, in the vitality of some of the wild birds or animals around him the gamekeeper deposits his minimal belief that life has another dimension . . . An outstanding book, which I read with admiration.” —John Berger
“His ear for the dialect and its comedy was pitch perfect . . . Barry understood class politics, the irreconcilable conflict between workers and employers. His book The Gamekeeper, which we filmed, captured this exactly. The title character is an ex-steel worker who now protects the land of the aristocracy and chases off his former workmates. A life in the open air for him means social exclusion for his wife and family. Is he changing sides or swapping one form of exploitation for another? Barry loved such contradictions.” —Ken Loach, The Guardian
“He has a very rare quality of loaded simplicity, a kind of eloquent stillness . . . it is the marvellously detailed observation of real unsentimental country life which compels attention as grippingly as any thriller. When bolder, gaudier stuff is long forgotten, Mr Hines's writing stays in the mind and nourishes it.” —Sunday Telegraph
“The feel and texture of country working-class life can seldom have been more faithfully recorded than they are here . . . I think this book has a quiet kind of value, easily missed, worthy of any reader's patience.” —Robert Nye, The Guardian
“The eye and the ear for country matters are as lethal as a crack shot on the Glorious Twelfth.” —The Times
“[The Gamekeeper] slyly evolves into implied criticism of the power imbalance between working-class George and the aristocratic Duke. Hines (1939–2016) skillfully writes in the tradition of such North England writers as Alan Sillitoe and Keith Waterhouse. This offers a convincing take on the strictures of class.” —Publisher’s Weekly
“Hines has a keen eye for nature, and his prose is at its finest when describing Purse’s adventures on the lush landscapes, especially his interactions with animals.” —Kirkus Reviews
“A powerfully political novel that sidesteps overt polemic, The Gamekeeper observes, with studied neutrality, the beauty and brutality of the natural world and contrasts it with the wilful brutality of the sporting estate. Our hero is, of necessity, a cog in a system that warps the land and those who work it into status symbols. It is a dynamic from which, nearly fifty years on, we still have not escaped. The Gamekeeper is a compelling novel-as-documentary that deserves a new generation of readers.” —Gregory Norminton
