The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner is a collection of short stories by Alan Sillitoe. The stories are all vignettes of working class Britons.
The stories are quite well-written, as Sillitoe has a good head for imagery, and he writes dialogue in the vernacular. This is only a problem in the title story, in which the first-person narrator, who is uneducated and barely literate, writes using this lush imagery, which seems unlikely.
The stories have running themes of loneliness and social isolation, often in relation to emotional problems.
The stories are an ocean, fifty years, and quite a bit of socioeconomic status removed from most pampered, middle-class Americans, although the themes on human nature are timeless. There's really not a lot else to say about these stories, perhaps because I am so far removed from them. They are well-written and moderately entertaining, with good insight into the human condition.
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