Read, Piers Paul

(British, 1941– )

Born in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, Read was educated at Cambridge. Begin with The Junkers (1969) in which middle-class refinement and state-sanctioned brutality are chillingly compatible aspects of Germany during the Nazi era. The Free Frenchman (1986) is a treatment of divided loyalties within the French Resistance during the Second World War. Love is ultimately the greatest obstacle to the main character's pursuit of his ideals. The Professor's Daughter (1971) is set at the height of 1960s’ student radicalism. It charts the break-down of relationships in a family whose outward respectability is undermined by sexual promiscuity and psychological disorder. The main protagonist of Monk Dawson (1970), finding it impossible to maintain his values in a morally degenerate society, is driven by despair to enter a monastery.

Graham Greene, Robert Goddard, Paul Theroux  DH