Toy Soldiers - Softcover

Thompson, Stephen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0340751460 ISBN 13: 9780340751466

Publisher: Sceptre, 2000

Synopsis

When Gabriel checks into a rehab in West London he thinks his problems are over. With a fractured home life behind him, a father he never knew, teenage years lost to petty crime and an increasing dependency on crack, all that the future can possibly offer is hope. Then he is forced to confront his demons, aided by Marcia, the enigmatic hostel worker with whom he falls in love.

Unflinching, warm and lovingly crafted, TOY SOLDIERS is an exceptional debut.

About this title

Review:

Hanif Kureishi (The Buddha of Suburbia, The Black Album) has described Toy Soldiers as "painfully honest and deeply affecting". Certainly, Thompson's first novel--a mix of reportage and personal narrative--gains from his background in journalism; this is an exposé of a life lived out on the edge of crime, drugs and friendship.

The epigraph from Albert Camus--"The aim is to live lucidly in a world where dispersion is the rule"--strikes the tone of a novel which struggles to portray the existentialist grief, and rebellion, of Gabriel, a young black man who, at the very beginning of the book, is looking for "a refuge, a sanctuary, a place to save himself from himself". He finds that refuge in a Notting Hill drug rehab centre and the very contemporary experience, at once prosaic and poetic, of communal, therapeutic living. It's an experience which drives Gabriel to write; Part Two of Toy Soldiers shifts to a first-person narrative as Gabriel uncovers his history from schooldays to drug days, from petty crime to the "Short Sharp Shock" of youth detention to the perils of dealing on the streets of Hackney. His subject matter may be potentially explosive but Thompson's prose is measured, distanced; it tells a history: "Before long, they'd colonised a corner of the snooker hall. Yardie corner, we called it. I have to admit I found it fascinating to watch them." Watching, Thompson let's his readers watch too--and remain curiously dispassionate about Gabriel's fate, the cure by love which this novel seems to hold out as one version of the sanctuary, and the change, for which it is seeking. --Vicky Lebeau

Review:

'A cool, urban tale of compelling anti-hero Gabriel's struggle for redemption from hard times and hard drugs in London's darker boroughs. Stephen Thompson's vital, gritty and gripping novel reads like a kind of Trainspotting in Hackney' 19

A compelling, urban tale. Gritty, yet filled with inspired prose... (Courttia Newland)

'For a first novel, journalist Stephen Thompson has produced something he should be very proud of - a harsh and candid story of a young black boy's struggle to adulthood despite all the odds. It is a beautifully constructed tale that starts where it ends, in a tube train on the way to a drug rehabilitation centre' Evening Herald, Ireland 11.2.00

Beautifully written, painfully honest and deeply affecting. Stephen Thompson's debut novel is terrific (Hanif Kureshi)

'Thompson's novel is well crafted and intelligently paced' Telegraph

A sensitive, subtle and fascinating account of a young black man's fight against crack addiction...Thompson's writing is compelling (The Times)

'Thompson's disconcertingly simple prose describes the ease of the fall and the struggle of the rise without flinching once' Metro

Accessibly psychological, gripping and just the right side of confrontational (ID)

Beautifully honest and unapologetically bleak (Independent on Sunday)

'Toy Soldiers is a brutally candid story about Gabriel Powers, a young black man coming to terms with a life of crime and crack in Hackney and his determination to come out the other side. Refreshingly, Stephen Thompson's debut manages to avoid the cliches of 'gangsta' culture and maintain a sense of credibility.' Pil

About this edition

• Publisher: Sceptre
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0340751460
• ISBN 13: 9780340751466
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288