Both is a hymn to a 1970s childhood spent in Sunday-school, in playgrounds and in parks, to old girlfriends, parents, neighbours, uncles, great grandmas and aunts ‘three-million times removed’. It is also a book about masculinity, class, family Christmases and Corporate Strategy meetings.
Steven Blyth watches himself as a son, a lover, a husband, a dad and an office middle-manager, exploring the small disappointments and large hopes just below the surface of everyday living. Steven Blyth follows in the footsteps of fellow Northern Realists Jim Burns, Geoff Hattersley, Peter Sansom and Ian McMillan, explaining how – beneath its rows, resentments and worries – family life constantly reveals its peculiar sense of belonging and happiness.
Steven Blyth was born in 1968 in Bolton and now lives in Manchester. He received an Eric Gregory Award in 1994, alongside Kate Clanchy, Julia Copus and Alice Oswald. For many years he edited the magazine Prop. He has published five previous books of poetry, including The Gox (1996), Baddy (1997), So (2001) and Mr Right (2011). His short stories appear in the Comma Press anthology Hyphen (2003).