Blast from the Past - Hardcover

Elton, Ben

3.5

3,800 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385334559 ISBN 13: 9780385334556

Publisher: Delacorte Pubns Inc, 1999

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The tale of Polly and Jack, two very different people who were in love in England in the early 1880s and then separated until the present day, chronicles Jack's trip back to England to search for his true love.

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Review:

It's 2.15 a.m. and the phone wakes you. Only someone bad would ring you at such an hour, or someone with bad news, which would probably be worse. You hear the answer-machine kick in and feel your heart beat. You listen. And then you hear the voice you least expect - a blast from the past."

Blast From The Past is the fifth novel from Ben Elton, the celebrated and controversial comedian/playwright/author whose TV credits include The Young Ones and Blackadder as well as the previous novels Stark and Popcorn. Jack Kent, US Captain stationed at Greenham Common during the early eighties, has a secret and unlikely affair with the Polly Sacred Cycle of the Womb and Moon, a 17-year-old ideological peace protester:

the star-crossed lovers made Romeo and Juliet look like an arranged marriage! Pamela Anderson and the Ayatollah Khomeni would have made a more natural-looking couple.

Sixteen years later and a four star General, Kent returns to Britain to seek out his only true love. Polly, now a lonely thirtysomething Equal Opportunities employee, is being stalked by the Bug when the phone rings.

Set in the staid, politically-correct nineties of New Labour Britain, the story flashes back with comic effect to the early eighties, a time of protest, strikes and Cold War. While hardcore Elton fans might be disappointed with the weak plot and smaller helpings of piercing wit and wacky socio-political observations, Blast from the Past still offers up some laugh-out-loud lines and entertaining reading. --Andrew Crawford

Review:

Praise from the UK for "Blast from the Past: " " The action is tight and well-plotted, the dialogue is punchy, and the whole thing rolls along so nicely." --"The Guardian" " Ben Elton's in top form with this gripping black comedy--a sure-fire hit." --"New Woman" " A lively thriller of sexual politics and morality. Elton's best book yet." --"Elle" " Blast from the Past is Elton at his most outrageously entertaining." --"Cosmopolitan" "From the Hardcover edition."

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