Tinniswood, Peter

(British, 1936– )

Born in Liverpool and educated at Manchester University, Peter Tinniswood became a full-time writer in 1967. Begin with Uncle Mort's North Country (1986), a collection of bizarrely entertaining stories demonstrating his talent for black humour in northern English settings. The stories follow outings taken by the henpecked Carter Brandon and his misanthropically blunt Uncle. The two feature in Tinniswood's novels of the Brandon family's fantasy-ridden existence on a northern housing estate. These include I Didn't Know You Cared (1974) and Call It a Canary (1985). With unrelenting deadpan humour, they range through the family's obsessions with sexuality, personal hygiene, and social status. In Winston (1991) the bored Nancy Empson diverts herself with passionate pursuit of poacher, rogue, and womanizer Winston, a grotesque embodiment of brute vitality and unscrupulous self-interest.

Spike Milligan, P. G. Wodehouse, Tom Sharpe  DH