Kiddar''s Luck

''He was indeed the nearest anybody ever got to Charlie Chaplin in print...the sentences skid and dance and hop on one leg or take a custard pie right on the chin or duck and weave and leave you gasping behind. But he is more for the wry smile than the belly laugh''. This was how Sid Chaplin described Jack Common, author of two of the best working-class novels of the 20th century, and ''the best prose writer to come from the North-East of England''. "Kiddar''s Luck", his first novel, was a commercial flop when it first appeared. It has since been called a ''neglected masterpiece'', remarkable for its ''linguistic mastery and insights into the lives of working people, free of illusions and false heroics'' (Richard Kelly in "The Independent"). Common''s semi-autobiographical novel tells the story of a boy, Willie Kiddar, his first 14 years, from conception on a Sunday afternoon to leaving school during the First World War.