Skinheads - Softcover

King, John

3.75

306 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0224064479 ISBN 13: 9780224064477

Publisher: Jonathan Cape, 2008

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Skinheads is the story of a way of life, told through three generations of a family: Terry English, original ska-loving skinhead and boss of a mini-cab firm; Nutty Ray, street-punk skin and active football hooligan; and Lol, son of Terry, nephew of Ray, a fifteen-year-old kid just starting out.

Terry is sick and not sure he's going to make his fiftieth birthday, but is kept going by his music, his lovely mod-girl assistant Angie, and his discovery of the abandoned Union Jack Club, which he decides to clean up and re-open. Ray, meanwhile, is out driving mini-cabs and struggling to control his anger - his only release, days out with Chelsea's finest. But when he takes the law into his own hands in an explosion of righteous violence, his future starts to darken.

John King's seventh novel draws on nearly forty years of evolving British culture. The skinheads didn't die off: the look went mainstream, their music was accepted and reinvented, while the boys themselves keep misbehaving in the traditional ways. Challenging all society's fears and prejudices, Skinheads shows us a group of truly humane characters driven by passion and honour and the culture they love. This is their story.

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Review:

'King ... offers a nuanced argument for skinhead culture' -- Arena

'King's achievement since his debut has been enormous: creating a modern, proletarian English literature at once genuinely modern, genuinely proletarian, genuinely English and genuinely literature' -- The Independent

`an energetic and technically adroit writer' -- Sunday Telegraph

Book Description:

The new novel from the author of The Football Factory

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