Arthur lives for the good times to be had at the weekends, he is a rock'n'roller before rock made its breakthrough in England, and declares at the outset that 'all the rest is propaganda'. As an anti-social hero, he had much similarities with the characters found in the works of John Braine and Stan Barstow. The story gained a huge critical success and was also adapted into screen in 1960.
Among Sillitoe's other acclaimed works from the 1950s is THE LONELINESS OF LONG-DISTANCE RUNNER (1959), a collection of stories for which the author won the Hawthornden Prize. The title story is narrated by a boy in Borstal, set to run in a race. He finds a kind of freedom in the isolated activity of running. The institute's governor has high hopes, that his protegé will be a winner, but the rebellious runner finds an opportunity to show his defiance of authority. "If I lost all I have in the world I wouldn't worry much. If I was to go across the road for a packet of fags one morning and come back to see the house clapping its hands in flames with everything I owned burning inside I'd turn my back without any thought or regret and walk away, even if my jacket and last ten-bob note were in the flames as well." (from The Ragman's Daughter, 1963)
The various protagonists of Sillitoe's early fiction are generally young men, amoral survivals in a kind of persistent rage in the slum world. THE RAGMAN'S DAUGHTER (1963) was a collection of short stories which was praised for its vitality. "Every story (and there is not one dud) has the exhilaration of revolutionary writing" stated Julian Jebb in Sunday Times. In his later works Sillitoe has moved beyond lower-class environment and toward analysis of psychological states of his characters. In the autobiographical RAW MATERIAL (1972) he shows the genesis of rage in the lives of his grandparents, A START IN LIFE (1971) leaves the protagonist peacefully cultivating his garden, bemused by a prophecy that he will go wild again at thirty-five. In 1959 Sillitoe married Ruth Fainlight, and had a son and adopted a daughter. THE RATS AND OTHER POEMS (1960 was Sillitoe's first published book of verse, an early example of his uncompromising, yet tender poetry. In 1963 he spent a month in the Soviet Union and gave his impressions in ROAD TO VOLGOGRAD (1964). Sillitoe have lived with his family mostly in London, but also spent time in Tangier, Spain and Israel. During the last years they have divided their time between London and France.