Field Ramble with Madeleine Dunnigan and John Grindrod

This month Sam talks to Madeleine Dunnigan about her debut novel Jean. It is set over the long, blazing summer of 1976  at Compton Manor, an isolated boarding school on the south downs. An oubliette, attended by a ragged assortment of boys who have all run out of road elsewhere. Jean is there too, searching desperately for himself among a violent mix of prejudice, antisemitism and predatory intentions. With no reliable actors in his life and cast away in the wilderness of the pre-internet era, he must navigate abandonment and his own irrepressible desire. 

Meanwhile Lara speaks to John Grindrod  about his fantastic new work of social history, Tales of the Surburbia. Throughout LGBTQ+ history, suburbia has been seen as somewhere to escape from. A place where hetrosexuality rules, where difference will not be tolerated and one where you’ll never find a soulmate. But for many, those streets of twitching curtains and pebble-dashed semis were - or still are - a place to call home. Tales of the Suburbs explores the untold 20th century tale of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer people in suburbia. Through remarkable archive material and original interviews.

Jean is published by Daunt Books 

Tales of the Suburbs is published by Faber

Music Used on this episode

Small Town Boy - Jose Gonzalez (Sommerville, Bronski, Steinbachek)

There is a Light That Never Goes Out - Cyrus Nabipoor (Marr, Morrissey)

Hand On your Heart - Jose Gonzalez (Stock Aitken Waterman)

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