DJ Taylor's Stewkey Blues is set not only in the (culturally and geographically) different territory of Norfolk, but in a different time too. Several of his tales are set in the 20th century and his tone and points of reference across the collection are redolent of this era. His characters namecheck The Wind in the Willows and Top of the Pops, PG Wodehouse and the Benny Hill Show. People dating are 'walking out' together; the new Bill Bryson is 'jolly good'. The collection's realm is the provincial domestic: the middle managers, shop owners, minor public school boys and lesser gentry of Norfolk fret over the 'damp-course' and bleeding the radiators, unspoken social mores and petty social interactions.