- Paperback: 230 pages
- Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd; First Edition edition (1 Nov 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0340751487
- ISBN-13: 978-0340751480
- Product Dimensions: 23.2 x 14.8 x 2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 501,845 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Missing Joe
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Product Description
Review
'A compelling, urban tale. Gritty, yet filled with inspired prose...' Courttia Newland; 'Beautifully written, painfully honest and deeply affecting. Stephen Thompson's debut novel is terrific' Hanif Kurshi; 'A sensitive, subtle and fascinating account of a young black man's fight against crack addiction...Thompson's writing is compelling' The Times; 'Accessibly psychological, gripping and just the right side of confrontational' ID; 'Beautifully honest and unapologetically bleak' Independent on Sunday
Stephen Blanchard, Time Out
'Amiable and quiet-toned while managing to disturb and convince'
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Stephen Thompson writes from the heart, humorously and poignantly. He draws his characters with real feeling, and evokes places - rural Jamaica and London in particular - with compelling detail. Not a word is wasted. It was impossible not to reach out to Neville as he struggles to come to terms with his brother's lot and his own relationships. This is a page-turner with deeper things to say - about missed opportunities, getting older and, ultimately, what it means to be an outsider. I've read both this and his first book TOY SOLDIERS with real pleasure, and I can't wait to get my hands on his next.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I couldn't put this book down. Thompson's writing is clear, precise and elegant, reminiscent of Jean Rhys. This is part family saga and part detective story, and Neville, the central character, is brilliantly realised. The depiction of rural England is first class, and I can't remember reading a better analysis of the dreaded mid-life crisis. I read Thompson's first novel, Toy Soldiers, and enjoyed it immensely. But with Missing Joe he has gone on to a new level.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I found this book difficult to resist and perhaps a sign of a welcomed evolution for those of us dedicated to Black Interest books. Too often such narratives are blighted by an intensely self-conscious style on the part of the author, or an obsession with fraught "social issues" such as drugs and racism, which may provide drama, but lack subtlety, sophistication and a chance to engender mere affection in the reader (as opposed to hate or love) for the characters.
This is a refreshing step away from all the heat. This is something alot cooler, managing to be both an absorbing, contemporary tale, whilst updating, (meaning, applying more subtlety) to the interactions between black and white English lives. Neville, a 40-something Jamaican man - with no wish to live in England, nor in any way connected to the drug world, not framed by poverty, nor under-educated - comes to England to find his twin brother, whose letters to him have dried up: The Missing Joe.
Neville is drawn with refreshing and accessible realism. Marked neither by inadequacy nor bluster, he provides an emotional centre for the book which is calming reflection rather than wearying agitprop. As an outsider, with a short agenda, he encounters a range of black and white people who all add a piece to Joe's story, then his, and, ultimately, the story of black people in contemporary London.
The 3 stars merely reflect a disappointment that there isn't more work in this vein as it is difficult to award stars when there are so few. Publishers, please make note.
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