Reviews
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JOE BOYD White Bicycles (Serpents laili 0...
Pink Floyd. the Incredible String Band. Nick [)ralke. lairport Convent'bn and Vashti Bunyan: it's not a bad roster for a lite spent ll‘ lllll‘Af; away from your native soil .Joe Boyd. a middle class musir.
obsessive from Boston.
Massachusetts started promoting blues artists while a '>ltl(liflll at
lllllllllSllC DRAMA WILL SELF The Book of Dave (Penguin) O.”
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"‘i The same bracket as Simon Napier Bell's overseas office of Black ‘.“rrr,xi ‘,‘./hite E Iektra Records. Throughout the (ills tie vised his considerable talents as a producer. scout and talent magnet to nurture some of the greatest monuments to the Folk Britannica movement that we
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Subtitled Making Music in the 79605;. Boyd's autobiography is steadied by the kind of
While Will Self is no mean chronicler of women (How the Dead Live is a moving testament to his deceased mother, told through the thinly-veiled, drugged-up eyes of a cancerous septuagenarian), it's his stories about the ballsed-up male condition that truly resonate. It’s there in the titles and the subject matter: Perfidious Man is a collection of essays about the fate of manhood at the tail end of the 20th century while Don'an utilises the canonic Wildean drama and repositions it in a post-Diana landscape. In short stories such as ‘The Five-Swing Walk’, a weekend dad battles his personal demons, while Self has cheerfully created nasty pieces of work such as Richard Hermes, John Bull and Dr Mukti.
But it’s unlikely that he’s ever written a more fully-formed rotter than his cabbie Dave Rudman (Rude Man: get it?). An Eastender seeped in The Knowledge and awash with bile for those who do him little harm as well as the folk who seek to cripple his private life, he gets his bigoted rantings down on paper. Not for one moment does he conceive that they’ll be discovered centuries later (AD: After Dave) and taken, quite
literally, as gospel.
As this is Will Self at his wolverine best, the writing is dense and difficult, but this time around only one half of his tale is in English (the cruel may argue that this is a quarter more than usual). The futuristic passages are nothing more or less than a 21 st century version of Clockwork Orange Nadsat. With knobs on. (Brian Donaldson)
Ont/tier or Julia." Cobes ‘1',?.:’.’()" A (twilight, Paul Dalei
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’. 70L L t CTlUN JACKIE KAY
Wish I Was Here :Picador‘i .0”
An award Winning poet and novelist. Jackie Kay cemented her reputation as a literary Jackieot allrtrades 'Nllll 9009's stunning short story collrx;tron lV/ty Don't You Stop Talking. Rather than being received as Just another string to her already richly (?lll‘-‘.lllt?(l how. it rmealed its author to be an overnight mistress ot the notorioust tricky. and much undervalued. short story torm.
This follow—up comprises 12 tales dealing With love. passion and infidelity in all their weird. turbulent and comic glories. Kay haVing expanded her palette to include yet further memorable veices and ingenious characterisations. In one of her diSintegrating relationships. the adulterous lover explains herself through the cold. dry Wit of Martin Amis. Elsewhere. a depressed divorcee contemplates a furtive StirCide. While in 'Sonata'. a second- hand accomit of a dead love affair ignites further passion onboard an all- night train. Warm, punchy and pOIgnant. Kay's short stories combine the economy Of poetry With knife- sharp ihSight to hugely compelling effect. iAllan Radcliffe)
FAMILY DRAMA KIRSTY GUNN The Boy and the Sea (Faber‘i “O
The deep. dark mysteries of the sea have tascmated writers down the ages from Coleridge's ‘Rime of the Anoient Mariner' to
Books
ALSO PUBLISHED Sytvia Brownfigg
The Deliver} Room The tale of a therapist Who works lrom home and tries. With increasing difficulty to separate her public and private attairs. Picador.
Michael Collins lhe Secret 1 Me of! Robert l’end/eton this Irish American scribe returns With a tale of murder. .ieceptron and literary ambition set on a university campus Weitle/ifeld A} Nico/sort
Muriel Spark lhe Ballad of Peck/tam Rve' lhe) Driver '1; Seat l diriburgh's irietaphor tor the favourite Dame is (ill()l);l\, .vateit, it «f»: remembered With these two reprints introduced by Williaii. Boyd and .John lanchester. Penguin. Colleen McCullough On. Off lhe author oi the Sultry [horn Birds brings us a steamy mystery drar'na set in 19608 Connecticut. H.'i/'per(,‘()I/iris William Marsdan & Julian Sher Angels of Death Subtitled: ‘lnside the Global Crime Empire' as we discover the ‘Chilling truth' behind the Hells Angels myth. Header 8. Stoughton.
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Part siirter dude drarria. part lélll‘ll‘, horror. We are enri‘ iiti-d by the tale of V/dlll. an out ot-sorts teen isre'xi: had quite a lew lll‘fltll‘, ones latelyi whose fraught relationships With his parents. friend. and the local girls are bearing down on him like a vast wave. While Gunn's tale is Just too slight. the pace of her writing draws us ever nearer to the drainatir. ending which drenclw; and leaves you teeling wrinkled and tired. lBrian Donaldson.
MHJIA SAHHE
JOE KEENAN My Lucky Star (\Villiam lleinemanni O...
A former scriotwriter o." Frasier. Joe Keeriart knows how tr, 'lll/ comic geniti‘ mm a dash of silliness. ‘Nhir l~ is exactly what Mr Lucky Star boils down to: Holly‘t‘rood scandal. blackmail. explici‘ ga. sex and underdog triumph as told by tl‘ree
would-be st,ript'.'/riters i'er' ,ea". ' " t, r. i looking for their luck, 'liie. f" u’.‘ r»,- ' oted. break. It's a tale which. to his, r r?
:n the hands of a lesser r ‘ "ti/,‘u' ' ' 27;, scribe. would riiake / 8"." i' " e tier‘er Jackie Collins look like beagr read "J ft one Jane Austen. Kee'iari. a me ‘o' a‘ ‘r‘.
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however. crafts every page as though it were his last. squeezing as many wry smiles. shocked expressions and belly laughs from his readers as hurrianly DOSSlble.
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.' ~1- .'/r 9'. THE LIST 29