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Showing results for tags 'jake arnott'.
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Book Review: Johnny Come Home by Jake Arnott
Drew Payne posted a blog entry in Words, Words and Words
Against the backdrop of 1972 London, four lost souls collide. Pearson has just lost his lover, O'Connell committed suicide. The activist Nina feels her ideals slipping away from her as she also watches the trial of the Angry Brigade, the anarchist group accused of a spate of bombings. Sweet Thing, a streetwise rent boy, can make anyone desire him, but who or what does he desire? Johnny Chrome is on the verge of his big breakthrough as the next big thing in glam rock, a breakthrough he has been working for far too many years. The 1960s are over and the world is changing as the new decade begins. Jake Arnott’s novel captures the changing world of early 1970s London. The hope of the 1960s has gone but the anger and unrest of the 1970s is only just beginning. People are beginning to protest and to push back. Arnott captures the changing society these people are living in, the shifting and uncertainty of these times. He also captures the displaced nature of the characters here, all of them trying to find a place for themselves in this changing world. Arnott’s strength is his feeling for characters. He gets under the skin of four, very different characters here. He gives each one the same degree of insight and development here. Often with multi-character novels, a writer will favour one or two characters, the ones they like and/or identify with the most. Here Arnott gives equal attention to all his central characters, showing no favouritism. The big drawback with this novel is there is an abundance of riches. Arnott has chosen several, big plots here, covering different themes and subjects. There is enough plot and subject-matter in this novel to fill two or even three stories. This did leave some of the plot with less room to breathe and develop. This might seem a quibble, but I did want Arnott to fully develop the plot strands that didn’t get enough space. This novel not just captures the feel and atmosphere of the early seventies; it draws the reader into the lives of a mismatched group of people living around the edges of this society. Arnott also draws a very accurate portrayal of living in a squat, a way of life gone now. Like so much of Arnott’s writing, this novel is well worth spending time with. Find it here on Amazon-
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Harry Starks is the quintessential 1960s London gangster, an Eastender, thuggish, violent, sharply dressed and homosexual, but he also loves Ethel Merman, Judy Garland and opera music. This novel tells his story from the 1960s until the early 1980s, portraying the changing face of London’s organised crime. In the 1960s he’s a racketeer, running cons and criminal corruption, but he has a pathetic desire for respectability too, first through his nightclub, at the wrong end of Soho, and then through foreign investments. By the 1970s he has become a porn king, but his crown is tarnished and grubby, with “bent coppers” snapping at his heels. In the 1980s it all catches up with him. This novel isn’t narrated by Harry Starks but by five different people from his life, in five different sections. They are the toy boy boyfriend, the disgraced lord, the petty criminal, the actress (the failed blonde bombshell) and the university lecturer. This isn’t an original idea but Arnott handles it with skill and insight. Each narrator has their own distinctive voice and a distinctive view of Harry Starks and his life, giving their own insights into him. But each narrator, in their own different way, is corrupted and changed by their relationship with Harry Starks. With this style, Arnott paints an interesting picture of a complicated character; Harry Starks is more than just another stereotyped Eastend gangster. This novel also paints a picture of a very changing world. Harry Starks is a crime boss, but his criminal empire is a changing one. The crimes he is living off at the beginning of the 1960s are different to the ones that make up his empire in the 1970s. With this changing world of crime, we’re given a window onto the changing world of London society in the 1960s and 1970s. This is a fascinating read and an equally interesting reread. There is so much here, both in the fictional world and the real world and real-life personalities that also make cameo appearances here. The description of Judy Garland in London, very much at the end of her life and her career, is so pathetic as to be heart-breaking. What is most memorable here, though, is the character of Harry Starks, a much more complicated and nuanced character than is usually presented as a crime boss in fiction. Find it here on Amazon
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