Faithless - Softcover

Williams, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1852425164 ISBN 13: 9781852425166

Publisher: Serpent's Tail, 2000

Synopsis

Jeff and Frank could have a relationship, well sort of. But that would involve talking, talking about Ross the rock star who left Frank to die and who sacked Jeff from his band. Instead of talking maybe it would be better to do something, something like blackmail Ross about the skeletons in his closet ? and who better to pull a blackmail scam than an ex-girl friend and an ex-sax player. Tough and tender, Faithless reflects the cool edginess of London today. Like the London novelists that have preceded him ? Patrick Hamilton, Iain Sinclair, Nick Hornby ? John Williams captures the London of his time: a London where keeping the faith gains you no brownie points.

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Review

Punk died - somewhere between Heaven and Charing Cross, between the Circus and the Grove. This wrenching, tragi-comic novel of the shabby, amiable post-punk years - ghostly neon nights long gone, the pubs, clubs and drugs - show how the blank generation became the blank cheque generation, and sank their youth, identity and sense of purpose in a bitter pit of nostalgia. Williams takes the city to its limits (Elizabeth Young)

An excellent mix of rock and roll, mystery and love story, peopled by the kind of characters I recognise from London nightlife (Martin Millar)

About the Author

John Williams was born in Cardiff in 1961.He wrote a punk fanzine and played in bands before moving to London and becoming a journalist , writing for everyone for The Face to the Financial Times. He wrote his first book, an American crime fiction travelogue called Into The Badlands (Paladin) in 1991. His next book, Bloody Valentine (HarperCollins), written around the Lynette White murder case in the Cardiff docks, came out in 1994. Following a subsequent libel action from the police, he turned to fiction. His first novel the London-set Faithless (Serpent's Tail) came out in 1997. Shortly afterward he moved back to Cardiff, with his family, and has now written four novels set in his hometown - Five Pubs, Two Bars And A Nightclub (Bloomsbury 1999); Cardiff Dead (Bloomsbury 2000); The Prince Of Wales (Bloomsbury 2003) and Temperance Town (Bloomsbury 2004). He has edited an anthology of new Welsh fiction, Wales Half Welsh (Bloomsbury 2004). He also writes screenplays (his ninety-minute drama, A Light In The City, was shown by BBC Wales in 2001). An omnibus edition of his Cardiff novels, The Cardiff Trilogy, is to be published by Bloomsbury in summer 2006.

About this edition

• Publisher: Serpent's Tail
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 1852425164
• ISBN 13: 9781852425166
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 174