Gabriel Fielding, pseudonym of Alan Barnsley) Biography

British novelist, born in Hexham, Northumbria, educated at Trinity College, Dublin; he practised as a doctor. A descendant of Henry Fielding, and a convert to Catholicism, much of Fielding's work is characterized by an intense feeling for a sinful man's desire for grace and for the battle between the flesh and the spirit. Brotherly Love (1954) introduces the Blaydons, a country clergyman's family; partly autobiographical, it centres on John, and his feelings for his elder brother, David, an Anglican priest who is also an incorrigible and destructive womanizer. The Blaydons reappear in other novels including In the Time of Greenbloom (1956) with its shocking story of the murder of John's young girlfriend. His most successful novel, The Birthday King (1962), set in Germany, reflected Fielding's study of the ‘malignance of the Nordic mind’ and depicted a riven family, much like the Krupps, who were servants of the Nazi state. Later works, such as Gentlemen in Their Season (1966), New Queens for Old (1972; novellas), Pretty Doll-Houses (1979), and Women of Guinea Lane (1986), were less successful.