Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Not his best, 23 Nov 2001
The Football Factory and Human Punk are modern day literary classics, this does not match up to them. That's not to say it's a bad book, the problem with it, is that you are three quarters of the way through it before it begins to gather pace and the plot and characters begin to unravel.
The final quarter is brilliant, gripping stuff, but it's hard work to get there.
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19 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
Excellent characters, 16 May 2002
By A Customer
This is the fifth book of John King's that I have read. I would like to offer my personal thanks to the author as he has started me reading again. Like another reviewer mentioned - it's wonderful that fiction is not totally monopolised by the 'literary intelligentsia'. Thomas Hardy and Jane Austen maybe good, but when you're a working class 21st Century northern male it is rather difficult to relate to characters from another era (although no doubt the messages and symbols are universal, I hear you cry). John King, unusual, fast-paced, raw, believable characters, a knack for drawing you in and allowing you to observe, as if you are there. He just gets better - Football Factory (got me reading again, as powerful a book as when I first read Kes - A Kestrel for a Knave, by Barry Hines, twenty years ago), Headhunters - brilliant characters, England Away - okay, didn't enjoy this as much, but then it followed from his previous book whose characters and camraderie were so in-your-face with gripping plots and sub-plots. Read Human Punk in May - couldn't put it down. Read White Trash, last week - it made my holiday (also read Hoolifan by Martin King last week - are they brothers?). I knew whoever wrote Headhunters had a true 'ethnographer's' insight into football violence and male-bonding. You couldn't write this stuff if you hadn't actually been there!! White Trash - a kind of overall commentary on the state of the nation? Jonathan Jeffrey, viewing the state from his establishment point-of-view. Ruby, the nurse, interacting with characters representing different definitions of England - the HIV positive character, the merchant seaman, the pirate DJ, her own bleach-blonde up-for-it nursing colleagues. The point about John King's characters, for me, is that they are so believable. I swear I could smell Ruby's perfume (along with the baker's bread and coffee from downstairs). Jeffrey reminded me of one of the characters in Headhunters who is one of the crew, but has a darker side and loves his Jaguar with its leather interior and his job in the city (if memory serves) - although Jeffrey is somewhat more sinister, to say the least . Another King style - juxtaposing (as my English teacher would have said) characters against one another - see Headhunters. In White Trash - Ruby, then Jeffreys, then the merchant seaman, then Ruby, the pirate DJ, then Jeffreys, the 'simple' husband ... - until they all converge ... but then you'll have to read it. A talented writer. A Ken Loach if you like. Hard-nosed, in-your-face, 20th Century England. Love it!!! When's the next one?!
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
Excellent characters, 22 Jul 2001
By A Customer
This is the fifth book of John King's that I have read. I would like to offer my personal thanks to the author as he has started me reading again. Like another reviewer mentioned - it's wonderful that fiction is not totally monopolised by the 'literary intelligentsia'. Thomas Hardy and Jane Austen maybe good, but when you're a working class 21st Century northern male it is rather difficult to relate to characters from another era (although no doubt the messages and symbols are universal, I hear you cry). John King, unusual, fast-paced, raw, believable characters, a knack for drawing you in and allowing you to observe, as if you are there. He just gets better - Football Factory (got me reading again, as powerful a book as when I first read Kes - A Kestrel for a Knave, by Barry Hines, twenty years ago), Headhunters - brilliant characters, England Away - okay, didn't enjoy this as much, but then it followed from his previous book whose characters and camraderie were so in-your-face with gripping plots and sub-plots. Read Human Punk in May - couldn't put it down. Read White Trash, last week - it made my holiday (also read Hoolifan by Martin King last week - are they brothers?). I knew whoever wrote Headhunters had a true 'ethnographer's' insight into football violence and male-bonding. You couldn't write this stuff if you hadn't actually been there!! White Trash - a kind of overall commentary on the state of the nation? Jonathan Jeffrey, viewing the state from his establishment point-of-view. Ruby, the nurse, interacting with characters representing different definitions of England - the HIV positive character, the merchant seaman, the pirate DJ, her own bleach-blonde up-for-it nursing colleagues. The point about John King's characters, for me, is that they are so believable. I swear I could smell Ruby's perfume (along with the baker's bread and coffee from downstairs). Jeffrey reminded me of one of the characters in Headhunters who is one of the crew, but has a darker side and loves his Jaguar with its leather interior and his job in the city (if memory serves) - although Jeffrey is somewhat more sinister, to say the least . Another King style - juxtaposing (as my English teacher would have said) characters against one another - see Headhunters. In White Trash - Ruby, then Jeffreys, then the merchant seaman, then Ruby, the pirate DJ, then Jeffreys, the 'simple' husband ... - until they all converge ... but then you'll have to read it. A talented writer. A Ken Loach if you like. Hard-nosed, in-your-face, 20th Century England. Love it!!! When's the next one?!
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