R. M.Strauss

R. M. Strauss is a British novelist and lawyer. He studied English at Oxford, graduating in 2010, then read politics at the London School of Economics. He trained as a lawyer and works in the UK government. He lives in south-east London with his wife and son.

His debut novel, The Skrat Prize Memorial Anthology (JEF Books, 2018), won the 2017 Kenneth Patchen Award for the Innovative Novel, chosen, in the prize citation, for the exceptional craft and originality with which it is written as well as for its deep sympathy for the human condition, both qualities epitomized by Kenneth Patchen himself. The novel is told through Dr. Michael H. J. Tizard, an embittered editor who, late in life, sets out to leave his macabre legacy by assembling the anthology of its title out of extracts from five novels under his control, bending their diverse voices to his own motive. The result is a novel built around the conceit of a curated volume, with the editor as its narrating sensibility.

The book carries a blurb from the Australian novelist Dominic Ward, who wrote that it is a work that sings itself to you, one he did not so much read as move with. It remains Strauss's only published book; he is a private figure who writes under his initials and keeps his day life apart from his fiction.

Start with The Skrat Prize Memorial Anthology; it is the whole of his published work and the reason JEF carries his name.