Saville by David Storey (1976)
The Booker Prize was established in 1969, and Saville, the first Vintage winner, was awarded the prize in 1976. It’s the story of Colin Saville, a young boy growing up in a Yorkshire village during and after World War II. Colin tries to escape the mining community in which he grew up, but he feels like an outsider at the grammar school in town and in 1940s middle-class society.
On winning, Storey said, ‘Prizes tend to be rewarded to the reliable rather than the liabilities, and the liabilities are the people who matter in the end.’