Strobey went looking for her at Walthamstow Central. But when he arrived there, nothing quite turned out the way he'd imagined. People were starting to disappear. So Strobey joined the others in the old hotel and waited. He knew she'd turn up. But did it mean the end of the world - or just a new beginning? These questions and many others are answered in Ellis Sharp's hilarious parody of cyberpunk plotting and prose set on the eastern fringe of modern, and past, and future London.
In this wide-ranging collection of essays and reviews, the novelist and short story writer Ellis Sharp analyses the work of novelists, poets, historians and film makers, including Ian McEwan, Paul Celan and David Lean. Topics covered include the hidden meanings of Jane Eyre, the problems involved in establishing Shakespeare's identity and the reputations of Angela Carter, Douglas Haig and Orde Wingate. Sharp scrutinises in detail Ian McEwan's response to the invasion of Iraq and the politics enshrined in his novel Saturday, as well as attitudes to Israel exemplified by critical responses to the novelists Aharon Appelfeld and Amos Oz. Other subjects covered include Rimbaud, Robert Mitchum, a favourite film of Stalin's and Ann Quin's final novel Trypticks. "Sharp is sui generis. At times he comes across as if he were a compound hallucination dreamed up by Iain Sinclair, William Burroughs and . . . well, himself. This might sound like an unappealing mix but I am delighted to have read him. You can trust him because beneath the zaniness, at the level of the sentence, he is very good indeed. This is not magic realism. These are the bad dreams of the twentieth century." THE GUARDIAN
History collides with fantasy as Ellis Sharp tackles the big questions of our time and uncovers startling new facts about Emily Brontë, extra-terrestrials and gastric secretion. These thirteen inventive stories answer such questions who invented yogurt? Why was the British Government prepared to spend one million roubles in an attempt to seize Lenin's trousers? And what did happen to Fred, Laura and the children in Brief Encounter after Alec left for South Africa?
THREE NOVELLAS by Ellis Sharp. TO WETUMPKA - He was running on empty and troubled by strange dreams. Plus maybe he'd read too much F. Scott Fitzgerald and seen too many movies. So Tollinger went looking for a new beginning. But what he encountered on an east coast beach was to change the direction of his life in a way he could never have imagined, in this tale of trauma and disintegration and of a struggle to survive disturbing events. INTOLERABLE TONGUES - In the spring of 1939, during the final phase of the great Palestinian rebellion, Dr Donald McCollum went on a motor tour of the Holy Land. His intention was to write a travel book about his pilgrimage to the places associated with the life of Jesus. This is not that book. THE DUMP - In a narrative which at times reads like a dystopian yet comic News from Nowhere retold by Samuel Beckett, we are taken inside the mind of a half-deranged inhabitant of The Dump, a vast waste tip on the edge of London, where the outcasts of our society wander amidst its filth and rubbish.
Widowed geologist Jon Tain is found dead in a remote Scottish graveyard. Death from exposure; a tragic accident. His daughter Jane is baffled by the events which led up to his death and sets out to make sense of his final mysterious car journey from Hampshire to the Highlands. As she journeys deep into her father's past she uncovers a secret love - and finds a new love of her own. The Professor's Wife - a poignant tale of deceit, secrecy and betrayal. As he read through the manuscript of this unpublished novel written years earlier, the writer was struck by how false it seemed, both in its language and plot and in its representation of the story underlying the narrative. But could anything be rescued from it? Month of the Drowned Dog - a novel about death, biography, literature and the deceptions of narrative.
When Ben Turner comes to Southwold in winter to escape a failed relationship, he encounters a mysterious and elusive stranger. This leads to the discovery of the town's connections to George Orwell and a growing obsession with events which happened in the town long ago. As the days pass Ben finds himself drawn into a passionate engagement with Orwell's life and writing, and a love affair which begins to echo Orwell's own romantic entanglement with a local woman. A novel about a love affair - but also involving a passionate debate between a woman and a man about George Orwell, his treatment of women, his books, and his evolving politics. Ellis Sharp is a novelist who is "ferociously brilliant" - Iain Banks, "utterly invigorating" - China Mieville, "targets the deadly absurdities and frustrations of our civilisation" - Ken MacLeod, "his books are jam-packed with wondrous things" - Lee Rourke, "Ellis Sharp demands that we set aside a whole set of expectations, not only about realism, but also about political fiction and English literature" - Mark Fisher, New Statesman, "You can trust Ellis Sharp because beneath the zaniness, at the level of the sentence, he is very good indeed" - Guardian.
The wife of Britain's greatest living novelist hears terrible screams coming from his study. She knows there are two people from his past who want to kill him. As she runs from the grounds of their country estate into their manor house to confront his attacker, the novelist's life and career unfold before the reader, leading to that terrible moment when the source of the horror finally becomes clear. This is the extraordinary tale of one man's life. Concrete Impressions - a novel about literature and biography.
A must for anyone interested in Pride and Prejudice, Bob Dylan, the movie "Blow-Up", Bolshevism, and the struggle against the M11 link road, this remarkable collection of stories probes the relationship between carp and revolution, the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins and the Paris Commune, imperialism and the sex life of Jane Austen, and anti-roads protests and Alexander Pope, as well as the connection between "Tess of the D'Urbervilles" and "New Labour". It also includes a valuable biography of the international socialist Edith Cavell, told entirely through her involvement with vegetables, as well as a diary of the 39-day strike at Thrabb's and a re-telling of the legendary Henry James seminar at My Lai.
SOMETIMES EXTRAORDINARY THINGS HAPPEN TO ORDINARY PEOPLE. He was running on empty and troubled by strange dreams. Plus maybe he'd read too much F. Scott Fitzgerald and seen too many movies. So Tollinger went looking for a new beginning. But what he encountered on an east coast beach was to change the direction of his life in a way he could never have imagined. This short novel by Ellis Sharp is a tale of trauma and disintegration and of a struggle to survive disturbing events and memories.
