No Love for Johnnie (novel)

Last updated

First edition NoLoveForJohnnie.jpg
First edition

No Love for Johnnie by Wilfred Fienburgh, was first published in 1959 by Hutchinson. Essentially a political novel, it deals with the life of Johnny Byrne, a cynical and burnt-out politician whose career has ostensibly stalled due to his leftist leanings in a conservative Labour government. It was made into a film in 1961, directed by Ralph Thomas.

Overview

Stylistically the novel belongs to the genre associated with John Osborne, John Braine, Shelagh Delaney and other realist writers who were to find their voices in the new wave of British "verismo" art forms. The narrative allows the reader to examine the internal conflicts that Johnnie Byrne negotiates as he attempts to find some merit in his desultory existence.[ citation needed ]

Under scrutiny are his relationships with his cold, politically driven wife, Alice, whose own politics are a point of contention for Johnnie. His neighbour, Mary and the young woman, Pauline illuminate Byrne's darker aspects. As a piece of literature, it may be considered light weight but re-readings will reveal a tight structure and a credible analysis of the way powerful individuals, the makers of social change, are paradoxically vulnerable ciphers in a world where they too may be ill-served by cupidity.

Even though the weak ending of his relationship with a much younger woman may seem clichéd and trite by twenty-first century standards, it is handled with a certain amount of legerdemain and irony so that it escapes being trite. There is a sense that Byrne lands on his feet by his very own inaction in political matters. By the novel's end, it is clear that Byrne himself has failed to influence his own life. and appears to be a pawn at the mercy of events around him.


Related Research Articles

<i>Jane Eyre</i> 1847 novel by Charlotte Brontë

Jane Eyre is a novel by the English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published under her pen name "Currer Bell" on 19 October 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. of London. The first American edition was published the following year by Harper & Brothers of New York. Jane Eyre is a bildungsroman that follows the experiences of its eponymous heroine, including her growth to adulthood and her love for Mr Rochester, the brooding master of Thornfield Hall.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Byrne (comics)</span> American comic book writer and artist

John Lindley Byrne is a British-born American writer and artist of superhero comics. Since the mid-1970s, Byrne has worked on many major superheroes; with noted work on Marvel Comics's X-Men and Fantastic Four. Byrne also facilitated the 1986 relaunch of DC Comics's Superman franchise with the limited series The Man of Steel, the first issue of which featured the comics' first variant cover.

<i>The Accidental Tourist</i> 1985 novel by Anne Tyler

The Accidental Tourist is a 1985 novel by Anne Tyler that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction in 1985 and the Ambassador Book Award for Fiction in 1986. The novel was adapted into a 1988 award-winning film starring William Hurt, Kathleen Turner, and Geena Davis, for which Davis won an Academy Award.

<i>Brideshead Revisited</i> 1945 novel by Evelyn Waugh

Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred & Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder is a novel by the English writer Evelyn Waugh, first published in 1945. It follows, from the 1920s to the early 1940s, the life and romances of Charles Ryder, especially his friendship with the Flytes, a family of wealthy English Catholics who live in a palatial mansion, Brideshead Castle. Ryder has relationships with two of the Flytes: Lord Sebastian and Lady Julia. The novel explores themes including Catholicism and nostalgia for the age of English aristocracy. A well-received television adaptation of the novel was produced in an 11-part miniseries by Granada Television in 1981. In 2008, it was adapted as a film.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ellen Glasgow</span> American novelist

Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow was an American novelist who won the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1942 for her novel In This Our Life. She published 20 novels, as well as short stories, to critical acclaim. A lifelong Virginian, Glasgow portrayed the changing world of the contemporary South in a realistic manner, differing from the idealistic escapism that characterized Southern literature after Reconstruction.

<i>Disgrace</i> Novel by J. M. Coetzee

Disgrace is a novel by J. M. Coetzee, published in 1999. It won the Booker Prize. The writer was also awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature four years after its publication.

<i>The Lost Prince</i> 2003 television film

The Lost Prince is a British television drama about the life of Prince John – youngest child of Britain's King George V and Queen Mary – who died at the age of 13 in 1919. John had epileptic seizures and an autism-like developmental disorder, and the Royal Family tried to shelter him from public view; the script did not present the Royal Family as unsympathetic, instead showing how much this cost them emotionally. Poliakoff explores the story of John, his relationship with his family and brother Prince George, the political events going on at the time and the love and devotion of his nanny, Charlotte Bill (Lalla).

<i>Next Men</i> American comic book series by John Byrne

John Byrne's Next Men is an American comic book series written and drawn by John Byrne. The first volume of the series was published by Dark Horse Comics between 1991 and 1995. A nine-issue miniseries was published by IDW Publishing in 2010 and 2011, followed by another series titled Next Men: Aftermath in 2012.

<i>Catwalk</i> (Canadian TV series) Canadian television series

Catwalk is a Canadian musical drama series that ran for 49 episodes on the YTV network from 1992 until 1994. The series' first season aired in syndication in the United States, while the second season aired on MTV.

<i>The Line of Beauty</i> 2004 Man Booker Prize-winning novel by Alan Hollinghurst

The Line of Beauty is a 2004 Man Booker Prize-winning novel by Alan Hollinghurst.

<i>The Jury</i> (TV serial) British TV series or programme

The Jury is a British television serial broadcast in 2002. The series was the first ever to be allowed to film inside the historic Old Bailey courthouse.

<i>Women</i> (Bukowski novel) 1978 novel by Charles Bukowski

Women is a 1978 novel written by Charles Bukowski, starring his semi-autobiographical character Henry Chinaski. In contrast to Factotum, Post Office and Ham on Rye, Women is centered on Chinaski's later life, as a celebrated poet and writer, not as a dead-end lowlife. It does, however, feature the same constant carousel of women with whom Chinaski only finds temporary fulfillment.

<i>Mansfield Park</i> 1814 novel by Jane Austen

Mansfield Park is the third published novel by the English author Jane Austen, first published in 1814 by Thomas Egerton. A second edition was published in 1816 by John Murray, still within Austen's lifetime. The novel did not receive any public reviews until 1821.

<i>No Love for Johnnie</i> 1961 British film by Ralph Thomas

No Love for Johnnie is a 1961 British drama film in CinemaScope directed by Ralph Thomas. It is based on the 1959 book of the same title by the Labour Member of Parliament Wilfred Fienburgh, and stars Peter Finch.

<i>Mary: A Fiction</i> 1788 novel by Mary Wollstonecraft

Mary: A Fiction is the only complete novel by 18th-century British feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. It tells the tragic story of a woman's successive "romantic friendships" with a woman and a man. Composed while Wollstonecraft was a governess in Ireland, the novel was published in 1788 shortly after her summary dismissal and her decision to embark on a writing career, a precarious and disreputable profession for women in 18th-century Britain.

Unburnable is a 2006 novel written by Antiguan author Marie-Elena John and published by HarperCollins/Amistad. It is John's debut novel. Part historical fiction, murder mystery, and neo-slave narrative, Unburnable is a multi-generational saga that follows the African Diaspora in the United States and the Caribbean, offering a reinterpretation of black history. John was an Africa Development specialist in New York City and Washington, D.C., prior to turning to writing. Since publication of Unburnable, she has worked with the United Nations, currently serving as Senior Racial Justice Lead at UN Women.

<i>Going to Meet the Man</i> 1965 short story collection

Going to Meet the Man, published in 1965, is a collection of eight short stories by American writer James Baldwin. The book, dedicated "for Beauford Delaney", covers many topics related to anti-Black racism in American society, as well as African-American–Jewish relations, childhood, the creative process, criminal justice, drug addiction, family relationships, jazz, lynching, sexuality, and white supremacy.

<i>An Inconvenient Woman</i> Book by Dominick Dunne

An Inconvenient Woman is a 1990 novel by Dominick Dunne. Its plot centers on the affair between married Jules Mendelson, an extremely influential member of Los Angeles high society, and Flo March, a diner waitress and aspiring actress whose life is transformed by the illicit relationship until she finds herself the inconvenient woman of the title.

<i>Noahs Compass</i> 2009 novel by Anne Tyler

Noah's Compass is a novel by Anne Tyler first published in 2009 about a solitary 60-year-old man trying to come to terms with his own life. Critics agree that in this, Tyler's 18th novel, the author again treads familiar territory by setting her novel in Baltimore and by following the life of an inconspicuous man who has never realised his full potential.

<i>Eureka Street</i> (novel) 1996 novel by Robert McLiam Wilson

Eureka Street is a novel by Northern Irish author Robert McLiam Wilson, published in 1996 in the UK, it focuses on the lives of two Belfast friends, one Catholic and one Protestant, shortly before and after the IRA ceasefire in 1994. A BBC TV adaptation of Eureka Street was broadcast in 1999.