When Gunn's first novel, The Grey Coast, appeared in 1926 from Jonathan Cape, it was praised, by those who chose to notice the book, mainly for its ‘realism’.

The first few paragraphs show clearly enough that realism was indeed the initial intention of the writer:

These few sentences are rich in information, the subtlety concealed by clarity of diction, as if such directness must be without guile. But it isn't. Without the need for description or explanation we sense the claustrophobic atmosphere of the household. We know without being told that there is no openness between the old man and the young girl. Each attempts to conceal from the other both intentions and reactions to events. Maggie is reticent, Jeems is sly. Their knowledge of the other's stratagems is acute but never put into words. On Maggie's part, this is a defensive ploy. On the part of Uncle Jeems, deviousness, secrecy and manipulation give him what satisfaction he can extract from his declining years.

We learn, too, that they live close to poverty – the cheap slip of curtain, the need to save paraffin; we sense Maggie's concealed revulsion at her uncle's deliberate uncouthness; we know that she recognizes the visitor, who is unwelcome, and that Jeems knows this, and relishes it.

We gather subliminally that they receive few visitors, but this one is only too regular a tapper on the door; and more than that, we read between the lines Maggie's fear of being caught in a trap from which she cannot escape. Altogether it is a passage of considerable accomplishment.