Michael Frayn had five novels published between 1965 and 1973. The second and third of these, The Russian Interpreter (1966) and Towards the End of the Morning (1967), are conventional, the former a cold war suspense novel and the latter a middle-class Londoners. Both are light, but also witty, stylish, and intelligent. The other three books are more original. While The Tin Men (1965) is tentative comic satire on the age of automation, A Very Private Life (1968) and Sweet Dreams (1973) are accomplished elaborate satiric fantasies. Perhaps because Frayn has mastered his unusual form of the fable in these two books, he has been unable to go any further as a novelist. His work since 1973 has been in the theater, and his future seems likely to be as a playwright.

Frayn was born in Mill Hill in north London; his mother was the former Violet Alice Lawson, and his father, Thomas Allen Frayn, was...