26 OCTOBER 1974, page 29

Marks Of Woe

Llew Gardner Engels, Manchester and the Working Class Steven Marcus (Weidenfeld and Nicolson £.5.25) An odd book. Captivating and infuriating and flawed by a confusion of aims.......

Fiction

Long longings Peter Ackroyd Something Happened Joseph Heller (Jonathan Cape £3.25) The inordinate length of the modern American novel has been noticed before – perhaps it is......