Let's all just take a second to admit that Brixton Rock is one of the best London novels ever written.
It's witty, as one can guess by the title (the author after all even wrote East of Acre Lane).
It's sexy and twisted - I mean, the main character does fall in love with his newly found half-sister.
It's rock in an Hanif Kureishi kind of way, with chapter titles being those of songs from the 1970s and 1980s.
It's deep in its discussion of racial problems.
It's young and fresh, and the dialogues between characters feel remarkably natural.
And, crucially, it's set in Brixton, which by itself should be more than enough (though it's rather strage to think that the gentrified Brockwell Park where I've ran Parkrun and where people spend a lot of money to go the Lido is the same place where Brenton spends so much of his time in the novel).
No comments:
Post a Comment