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WED
JUN 6.30 PM
Authors at Sauchiehall Street in June
THE GLASGOW FILM THEATRE
SIRuCEIRIS IBCHNINK}TCHN
“ Tibet’s Secret Mountain”
Chris, Britain’s best known mountaineer, will be giving an illustrated talk with slides followed by a book signing.
£4/£3 (£2 redeemable against price oft/1e book)
THU
JUN 7.00 PM
FUYFEUERIBUE IJEJTMIUN
“ Keep Your Hands on the Wheel”
Katherine’s lst novel, THE BREAKING, was nomi- nated for the 1998 Orange Prize for Fiction. Waterstone’s are delighted to host the official launch of
her new novel. FREE EVENT.
TUE
22
JUN 7.00 PM
I¥EYCIEFAJHE CLEESE
“ How To Manage Your Mother”
A practising psychoanalytic psychotherapist and mar- ried to actor John Cleese, Alyce will be explaining the thinking behind the book.
132/131 (redeemable against price of the book)
THU
JUN 6.00 PM
THE GLASGOW FILM THEATRE in conversation with
HERALD’S film correspondent, Bill R , acclaimed film director KEN RUSSELL will discuss and sign copies of his new novel.
134/123 (£2 redeemable against price of the book)
FOR TICKETS AND MORE INFORMATION
153—157 Sauchiehall Street
0141 332 9105
90 NEW 10-24 Jun 1999
books
reviews
JOURNALISM SATIRE Bilton
Andrew Martin (Faber £6.99) * int 1k *
Some books purport to be funny, while only managing to elicit an occasional weak smile. Andrew Martin’s Bilton, on the other hand, guarantees a full belly- laugh every few pages. Best not to read it in public, unless you have no objections to peOpIe staring and pointing suspiciously at you.
The Withnail of the journalistic world, Martyn Bilton is obnoxious, anti-social, fiercely Marxist, and a very talented writer. He’s also just become an overnight celebrity due to an incident involving a cup of coffee and the Prime Minister. The story of his meteoric rise to fame is told from the perspective of his one and only friend, a fellow journalist whose fortune begins to decline as Bilton’s increases.
Very little escapes Martin’s brilliant spotlight; the media, politics, class structure, relationships and human nature in general are all subjected to his brutally perceptive observations. An outstanding debut. (KK)
MUSIC HISTORY Punk Rock: So What?
Roger Sabin ed (Routledge £45 h/b; £13.99 p/b) *‘k‘k
Revisiting the meaning and legacy of a phenomenon labelled at the time by the tabloids as ’the filth and the fury’, this collection attempts to move beyond the received wisdom handed down by the Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (as perpetrated by Malcolm McLaren and his phlegm-throwing cohorts).
The contributors are not the usual suspects (no Jon Savage, no Julie Burchill), but a collection of academics and scribblers who were there or thereabouts. Suzanne Moore, for example, observes in fine Groucho style that she could never be a member of a sub-culture that would have her, while Lucy O'Brien offers some insights into what punk meant to women as artists and individuals. And elsewhere we learn of the impact of the p-word not only on music but literature, cartoons, television, technology, politics and later teen styles.
Mere nostalgia or the insurrection of a million minds? Go ahead, punk: make your choice. (RE)
PROSE NON-FICTION The Heart-Shaped
Bullet Kathryn Flett (Picador £9.99) * **
Magazine editors sometimes mutter that authors don’t necessarily produce good copy, but Kathryn Flett’s confessional memoir might produce reciprocal concern from literary types.
Her account of her 1995 marriage, and it's break-up sixteen months later, is full of the long and detailed descriptions of fashions worn and holidays taken to exotic places of a good professional journalist (hardly surprising from the former editor of Arena). But the street-smart prose style, while readable, seems
inappropriate to its obviously painful subject matter. The marriage itself has ended by the halfway point in the book — leaving time for another relationship and a nervous breakdown.
Flett over-indulges in long passages of self-analysis, and reflections on the comments of her astrologer, analyst and glitzy London mates, but there are a few genuinely powerful passages. Her diary of the first few days after her break-up, and of her slide into mental illness are as harrowing as such stories get. (SC)
ANTI-ROMANTIC FICTION Eating Cake
Stella Duffy (Sceptre £10) ** t it Having dissected the cosiness of smug marrieds to deadly, comic effect in her last book, Sing/mg Out The Coup/es, Stella Duffy now takes a darker look at thirtysomething coupledom.
Lise, 33, has everything going for her — happy marriage to Andy, good job, the perfect house — but she wants thrills not found in the IKEA catalogue. Embarking on an affair with her best friend's boyfriend and then a fling with a female colleague, Lise finds she wants not only to have her cake and eat it, but to help herself to seconds and thirds.
It's a credit to Duffy’s sometimes unbearably honest prose and devastating observational eye that this speedy descent into selfish, narcissistic pleasures remains both funny and compassionate, even though you know it’s wrong and that it'll end in tears. Not one to read after a few margaritas on your hen night, maybe, but otherwise a sassy, frank and wickedly convincing page-turner. (EM)
HORROR FICTION
Bag Of Bones
Stephen King (New English Library £6.99) * *9: * Another Stephen King passes into
paperback and into your bag for a good old holiday read — which is exactly where it deserves to be. It’s not so much what he writes about, but the way he manages to spin that yarn out in a way to rival Scheherazade’s Arabian Nights. No sooner has he killed off the baddy when you realise there are still 200 pages to go and a whole haunted — possibly even sentient — house scenario to explore.
King’s trademarks abound: child in jeopardy, supernatural and empathetic communications, the atonement of white American guilt for past racial misdeeds and some raunchy yearnings which are never too explicitly revealed. But what makes this extra special is that his protagonist is a best-selling author. King's legions of fans can easily empathise with the central paranoia of writer’s block and will undoubtedly read autobiographical references into the details which go to build up his character. (TD)
BLACK COMEDY
The Sopranos Alan Warner (Vintage £6.99) in” Alan Warner's third novel features a band of renegade Catholic school girls who have travelled to the capital for a choral competition. The main event itself becomes sidelined as the city captures their hearts and their livers. While the novel is witty and boasts