 The literary critic John Carey suggests that the abandonment by intellectuals of " the clerks and the suburbs " as subjects of literary interest provided an opening for writers prepared to exploit this underexplored area . He considers John Betjeman and Stevie Smith as two writers who successfully achieved this . Hammill believes that Gibbons should be named alongside these two , since in her writings she rejects the stereotypical view of suburbia as unexciting , conventional and limited . Instead , says Hammill , " Gibbons 's fictional suburbs are socially and architecturally diverse , and her characters — who range from experimental writers to shopkeepers — read and interpret suburban styles and values in varying and incompatible ways " . Hammill adds that Gibbons 's strong identification with her own suburban home , in which she lived for 53 years , may have influenced her preference to stay outside the mainstream of metropolitan literary life , and from time to time mock it . 
