Toni Cade BambaraThose Bones Are Not My Child
Pbk published March 2000 by Women's Press at £12.99
ISBN: 0 7043 4654 0
It was called 'the city too busy to hate', but in the early 1980s more than forty black children were murdered in Atlanta, their bodies found strangled, beaten and sexually assaulted. Toni Cade Bambara was living in Atlanta at the time and this extraordinary novel, published posthumously, is the result of twelve years of first-hand research, as she delved into the murders and the world in which they occurred.
The narrative focuses on one black family living on the margin of a seemingly prosperous city, whose son goes missing just as the child abductions are beginning to be reported. As the distraught, already estranged parents search frantically for their son, the story moves through the full spectrum of Atlanta's political, social and cultural life, illuminating the complex issues of race and class that bedevilled the city.
Suspenseful, richly dramatic, deeply emotional, this is an epic work of fiction.
A letter from Toni Morrison
Dear Reader Those Bones Are Not My Child is the result of twelve years of work and first-hand research by Toni Cade Bambara, who lived in Atlanta during the years of the Atlanta child murders - a period when more than forty black children were slaughtered, found in ditches, on riverbanks, strangled, tied-up, beaten, and sexually assaulted - events which created media, political and enforcement fever, and which culminated in the unpersuasive conviction (based on a few fibbers) of a young black man.
Ms. Bambara on the spot, actively involved, taking notes, doing field research and interviews, used her unassailable talent as a writer and her intimate relations with all levels and facets of the Atlanta scene to construct what I believe is a magnum opus.
This novel does several things: 1. It puts the reader at the heart of the horror that came to be called the Atlanta child murders. This is not the politically expedient story - nor the news stories written by visiting journalists; not the district attorney's official account. It is the inside story as lived in the neighbourhoods and on the streets by people gripped in its terror yet determined to survive it; 2. It also dramatises the story of a local family when right at the start of the abductions their teenage son goes missing; 3. It is the narrative revelation of the workings of a major southern city of the 1980s, a revelation of what clogs the bloodstream of "The City Too Busy to Hate". These Bones Are Not My Child is a big book, as large as the events that took place, with the breadth of the Invisible Man, the depth of Their Eyes Were Watching God, and the humanity of Crime and Punishment. Toni Morrison
About The Author Toni Cade Bambara is the author of two short story collections, Gorilla, My Love and The Sea Birds Are Still Alive; a novel, The Salt Eaters; and a collection of fiction, essays, and conversations, Deep Sightings and Rescue Missions. She is also a noted documentary filmmaker and screenwriter, and her work includes the documentaries The Bombing of Osage Avenue and W.E.B. Du Bois: A Biography in Four Voices. Toni Cade Bambara died in 1995.
Titles by Toni Cade Bambara at Amazon.co.uk
Niall Griffiths
Grits
Pbk published February 2000 by Jonathan Cape at £10.00
ISBN: 0-224-05996-3
In the late 1990s, a group of young drifters from various parts of Britain find themselves washed up together in a small town on the west coast of Wales, fixed between mountains and sea. Here, they both explore and attempt to overcome those yearnings and addictions which have brought them to this place: promiscuity, drugs, alcohol, petty crime, the intense and angry search for the meaning which they feel life lacks at the arse-end of this momentous century.
A novel about the dispossessed and disenfranchised, about people with no further to fall, Grits is also resolutely about the spirit of the individual, and each character's story is told in their own rich, powerful dialect. Through their voices, the novel charts this chapter in their lives, presenting, with humour and rage and a deep underlying sadness, a picture of the diversity and waste that is life in Britain today.
A work of power, passion and enormous originality, Grits describes – in language both mythic and demotic – ways of living that appear squalid but which aspire to the spiritual. As a novel that speaks for an under-class and a sub-culture, it stands comparison with Cain’s Book and Trainspotting. 'Grits is an astonishing feat - pulsing an every page with the unmistakable brilliance, authenticity and spirit of a magnificently gifted writer having the courage to write uncompromisingly from within his own culture. It's the book that I and many other people in Britain and further afield have been waiting a long time for, a work which both challenges and re-affirms the power of the novel.' Irvine Welsh About The Author Niall Griffiths was born in Liverpool in 1966. He has spent time in many cities across these islands, doing jobs 'of varying degrees of dullness'. He had always hoped to write. Grits took him four years to complete. Charles Bukowski and Dylan Thomas are just two of the writers he particularly admires.
He now lives in Wales where he is working on his second novel, Sheepshagger.
Titles by Niall Griffiths at Amazon.co.uk
Wally Lamb
I Know This Much Is True
Pbk published April 2000 by HarperCollins at £6.99
ISBN: 0006513239
Dominick Birdsey's entire life has been compromised and constricted by Thomas, the paranoid schizophrenic twin he both loves and resents. Born in the waning moments of 1949 and the opening minutes of 1950, the twins are physical mirror images who grow into distinct yet connected entities in small-town Connecticut. From childhood, Dominick fights for separation and wholeness in a house of fear.
But Dominick's talent for survival comes at enormous personal cost. And it will be put to the ultimate test when his brother commits an unthinkable act that threatens the tenuous balance of both his and Dominick's life. To save himself, Dominick must confront not only the pain of his past but the dark secrets he has locked within himself. He will have to search for the courage and love to forgive, and finally to rebuild himself beyond the haunted shadow of his twin.
This deeply moving and profoundly satisfying novel illuminates our most urgent needs and fears: our desire for love and acceptance, our struggle to survive, our yearning for self-determination. From anger through confusion to resolution, Dominick's journey will leave no reader untouched. 'Wally Lamb's achievement is to force you to feel Dominick's pain… the events in his everyday nightmare are presented with a sneaky simplicity which generates emotional tension and even a subtle eroticism' Daily Telegraph
'Every now and then a book comes along that sets new standards for writers and readers alike. Wally Lamb's latest novel is stunning - and even that might be an understatement' Associated Press
'Terrific readability, tenderness, optimism and wit' The Times Titles by Wally Lamb at Amazon.co.uk
Andrei Makine
The Crime of Olga Arbyelina
Pbk published January 2000 by Sceptre at £6.99
ISBN: 0-340-72815-9
Olga Arbyelina, a White Russian princess living quietly with her adolescent son in a small French town, is a relative newcomer to the Russian community there. Intriguingly little is known about her when, in the summer of 1947, she is suspected of murdering a fellow émigré, only for the case to be dropped. As the story unfolds of the preceding year, a picture forms of her upbringing in Russia followed by her exile and marriage in Paris, and the details of a darker, hidden crime begin to emerge, encircling the narrative in an ever-tightening snare. 'The book's fascination, and enormous power, is in the nuanced process by which Olga discovers (and we do with her) what this son, whom she thinks of as a boy in need of protection, has been doing to her… Monstrous and delicate, convincing and nightmarish, the process challenges your ideas about madness, self-delusion and mother-love in glowing, gauze-silk prose Ruth Padel in the Daily Telegraph
'Makine manages plot and atmosphere so cleverly that the reader is desperate to know what happens next… In his evocation of a golden age long past and his delicate, sensual handling of Olga's relationship with her son, the writing brings Nabokov to mind, but there is no doubt that Makine has his own voice' Lucy Dallas in The Times Literary Supplement
'Makine deserves our full attention, he exerts impressive control over [his] themes, hops back and forwards through time with ease, and ultimately never forgets the value of a simple anti compelling story’ Lucy Atkins in The Sunday Times
A remarkable book… The French novel is alive again, in the hands of a Russian. 'Wonderfully vivid. The descriptions of the terrible, in more ways than one, winter of 1946-7 are glittering’ Allan Massie in the Scotsman About The Author Andrei Makine was born in Siberia in 1957 and studied at the University of Kalinin and Moscow. He left the Soviet Union in 1987, seeking asylum in Paris. He arrived with nothing - for the first couple of years in Paris he slept in a cemetery vault and wrote on park benches. La Testament Francais had been rejected by dozens of publishers when Simone Gallimard rang to say she wanted to publish it. Not only did it win the equivalent of a double Booker but what really threw the literati was that Makine, a Russian immigrant had written his novel in perfect French. It has now sold a million copies in France and has been translated into 27 languages. A film deal is about to be finalised.
Titles by Andrei Makine at Amazon.co.uk
Michael MoorcockMother London
Pbk published May 2000 by Scribner at £7.99
ISBN: 0-684-86141-0
Short-listed for the Whitbread Fiction prize
'A novel that is intended to be a celebration of my native city.' (Michael Moorcock)
A wonderfully rich and dazzling novel celebrating the people and places of post-war London. The main characters – all considered to be mentally disturbed by the medical profession - are able to hear the babbling voices from the heart of the city in their heads. A loving rhapsody dedicated to London itself in much the same way as Ulysses was for Dublin.
This is the voice of the city - the London of obscure suburbs, overlooked parks, forgotten graveyards, - a network of villages linked by overgrown and demolished routes. ‘Remembrance, rock, and reconfabulation: Moorcock is a London shamen’ William Gibson
'Mother Londonis wise and wistful, authentic and authoritative, intelligent and informed; it is a masterpiece.' Independent
‘There is a feast in store for those who have never been dazzled and disturbed by Michael Moorcock’s eye for the absurd and gift for fantasy; and confirmation for those familiar with his work, that he is one of the most original authors of our time' Sunday Telegraph
'It creates what amounts to a new myth of London. If this wonderful book does not finally convince the world that Moorcock is in fact one of our very best novelists and a national treasure, then there is no justice' Listener
'His is the grand, messy flux itself, in all its heroic vulgarity, its unquenchable optimism. For Moorcock's Londoners, nothing could be more magical than the real fabric of the city they love and the stories with which it echoes' Angela Carter, Guardian About The Author Michael Moorcock was born in London in 1939. He started writing at a young age, producing a variety of fanzines during his teenage years. After leaving school he began contribute stories to Tarzan Adventurer, a magazine that he went on to edit briefly from 1957-8. By the early 60s he was writing for SF Adventures and Science Fantasy. These stories were the first to feature his most well known character, Elric of Melnibone. His first novel, The Sundered Worlds, was published in 1965. In 1967, his novella Behold the Man won the Nebula Award. By the late 60s he had become quite prolific, often producing several novels a year. He combined his writing with the editing of New Worlds, a SF and fantasy magazine which under his reign was to become hugely influential, publishing stories by many of SF's more literary writers such as Brian Aldiss, Samuel Delany, Thomas Disch and M. John Harrison. When the magazine ceased publication, he continued to edit a series of anthologies by the same name until 1976. His novel The Condition of Muzak won the Guardian Fiction Award, and Mother London was shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize. As well as his fiction, he has also written a study of fantasy called Wizardry and Wild Romance (1987).
He has written for and performed with the rock groups Hawkwind and Blue Oyster Cult, scripted films and an interactive live-action computer game. He and his wife Linda divide their time between Austin, Texas, London and the Mediterranean.
Titles by Michael Moorcock at Amazon.co.uk
Michael MoorcockKing of the City
Pbk published May 2000 by Scribner at £9.99
ISBN: 0-684-86140-2
King of the City is the sequel to the award-winning Mother London. In creating this outstandingly rich and rewarding reading experience, Michael Moorcock exposes the beating heart of our chaotic and exuberant times with unrivalled wit, compassion and insight.
The narrator, Dennis Dover, son of 'the last real Londoner to be hanged for murder', is born and raised in Brookgate, an inner London area rich in multi-layered histories and resonances. He grows to adulthood streetwise and
savvy - and deeply attached to his beautiful, brilliant cousin Rosie Beck with whom he has an almost telepathic empathy. But neither Dennis nor Rosie can foresee the inexorable rise of John Barbican Begg, the financial genius and unscrupulous schemer who, - despite their resistance, latches lamprey-like onto their lives. As Dennis pursues a dual career as underground rock guitarist and intrepid photojournalist while Rosie devotes her intelligence and energies to helping the poor of the world, Barbican builds a commercial empire whose unprecedented wealth and power dwarfs that of most nation states.
Against a brilliantly detailed backdrop of a world in turmoil - from Paris to Rwanda, from New York to Kosovo - Rosie, Dennis and Barbican follow their different paths, drawing towards a spectacular joint resolution of their destinies at one of the most historic nodal points of the Old World. 'Moorcock has the bravura of a nineteenth-century novelist: he takes risks, he uses fiction as if it were a divining rod for the age's most significant concerns' Peter Ackroyd, Sunday Times
'A master craftsman at the height of his powers. He has the energy of a Golden Age author' Iain Sinclair, New Statesman
'He is one of the most original authors of our time' Sunday Telegraph About The Author Michael Moorcock was born in London in 1939. He started writing at a young age, producing a variety of fanzines during his teenage years. After leaving school he began contribute stories to Tarzan Adventurer, a magazine that he went on to edit briefly from 1957-8. By the early 60s he was writing for SF Adventures and Science Fantasy. These stories were the first to feature his most well known character, Elric of Melnibone. His first novel, The Sundered Worlds, was published in 1965. In 1967, his novella Behold the Man won the Nebula Award. By the late 60s he had become quite prolific, often producing several novels a year. He combined his writing with the editing of New Worlds, a SF and fantasy magazine which under his reign was to become hugely influential, publishing stories by many of SF's more literary writers such as Brian Aldiss, Samuel Delany, Thomas Disch and M. John Harrison. When the magazine ceased publication, he continued to edit a series of anthologies by the same name until 1976. His novel The Condition of Muzak won the Guardian Fiction Award, and Mother London was shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize. As well as his fiction, he has also written a study of fantasy called Wizardry and Wild Romance (1987).
He has written for and performed with the rock groups Hawkwind and Blue Oyster Cult, scripted films and an interactive live-action computer game. He and his wife Linda divide their time between Austin, Texas, London and the Mediterranean.
Titles by Michael Moorcock at Amazon.co.uk
Mark Spragg
Where Rivers Change Direction
Pbk published October 2000 by Vintage at £6.99
ISBN: 0-099-28075-2
When Mark Spragg was a boy of eleven he went to work for his father. His father owned the oldest dude ranch in Wyoming, on the high Yellowstone plateau, and he had over a hundred horses. Where Rivers Change Direction is Mark Spragg’s remarkable memoir of growing up in this sublime and unforgiving landscape. In prose at once sturdy and very beautiful, he writes of his family, of his mentor John, a cowboy, and of the animals - both wild and domestic - that fill his life. An elk hunt that goes wrong; a winter spent alone on
the snowbound ranch high in the mountains; the beauty and bravery of horses - Where Rivers Change Direction recreates the small but profound dramas of one boy's journey towards manhood 'Imagine the spirit of Ernest Hemingway reborn in the soul of a ranch-owner's son in Wyoming…. Spragg's description of a boyhood spent on horseback unfolds with a spare, rhythmic perfection' Esquire
‘Elemental, powerful ... A piercing voice from the heartland, this resonant autobiography weds the venerable western tradition of frontier exploration of self and nature with the masculine school of writing stretching from Hemingway to Mailer' Publishers Weekly Titles by Mark Spragg at Amazon.co.uk
Jane StevensonLondon Bridges
Published May 2000 by Jonathan Cape at £15.99
ISBN: 0-224-05940-8
Jane Stevenson's collection of novellas, Several Deceptions, was one of the critical successes of 1999. London Bridges, her first novel, evokes the mood and sheer enjoyability of classic English detective fiction, though it is set in the London of the 1990s. A young lawyer comes across a treasure lost in the Blitz, and is tempted into a series of crimes which end eventually in murder. Meanwhile, a very contemporary cast of characters assembles to confound him. The denouement of the intricate plot occurs in the Cotswolds, and involves teddy bears, Greek monks, New Age bikers and the source of the Thames, but before we get there, there is humour, satire, social observation, occasional moments of pathos, and the scintillating wit and intelligence that distinguished Several Deceptions. Praise for Several Deceptions
'These stories are refreshingly, unapologetically erudite… They are also extremely funny… The novella is not the easiest of literary forms… but Stevenson makes it appear effortless.' Stephanie Merritt, Observer
'A very enjoyable display of deadly wit given with a relaxed literary confidence… Here is a gossipy, smart, critical, intellectual, high-spirited and literate voice.' Hal Jensen, Times Literary Supplement
'An accomplished first book, and even if Stevenson never writes another word, she is already more than promising.' Phil Baker, Sunday Times
'What sustains this… is an unfashionable concept of serious fiction as entertainment, an art in which the process is as enjoyable as the effects it is designed to produce.’ Jonathan Keates, Independent
About The Author Jane Stevenson teaches in the Centre for British and Comparative Cultural Studies at the University of Warwick
Titles by Jane Stevenson at Amazon.co.uk
Jane StevensonSeveral Deceptions
Pbk published May 2000 by Vintage at £6.99
ISBN: 0-09-927374-8
These four novellas are narrated by a brilliantly distinctive voice telling the stories of an Anglo-Italian Professor of Semiotics undone by his own cleverness: an Irishwoman who joins a Tibetan nunnery in India; The old university friends whose party is galvanised by a pugnacious newcomer into a demented, Buchanesque mission to restore their hostess’s lost honour; and an international lawyer who takes to terrorism in pursuit of a theory. Several Deceptions is clever, funny and a little cruel and introduces a writer of quite remarkable gifts.
About The Author Jane Stevenson teaches in the Centre for British and Comparative Cultural Studies at the University of Warwick
Titles by Jane Stevenson at Amazon.co.uk
Toni Cade Bambara
Those Bones Are Not My Child
Jane Stevenson
