Read, Piers Paul (Vol. 25) - Introduction

Piers Paul Read 1941–

English novelist and nonfiction writer.

Perhaps best known in America for Alive, a restrained account of the survivors of a 1972 Andes airplane crash, Read has also written several novels, including his recent A Married Man and The Villa Golitsyn. In these novels Read explores his moral and political concerns by focusing on the social and domestic life of the British upper-middle class.

Critics point to Read's plots as contrived and melodramatic because of the sensational events that often introduce or resolve his narratives. Read's style, even in his fiction, is characterized by its unimpassioned expression—an almost journalistic chronicling of events.

(See also CLC, Vols. 4, 10; Contemporary Authors, Vols. 21-24, rev. ed.; Something about the Author, Vol. 21; and Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 14.)