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James Hawes's attention to detail and canny observations of the minutiae of life ensure a constant supply of laughs throughout this fast-paced and acerbic yarn. That he helped turned one of his previous novels - Rancid Aluminium - into what the Guardian considered to be 'the worst film ever made in the UK' is an obvious source of pride for Hawes. The experience was clearly an inspiration to him, for it is the world of the British film industry, and specifically the obnoxious individuals living in it, that provides him with much of the raw material for this, his fourth novel. Admittedly the designer-label-obsessed, cocaine-snaffling denizens of Soho's drinking dens are a fairly easy target, yet the author approaches their awful superficiality, prodigious drug consumption and weird sexual peccadilloes with perfect irreverence. Hawes also tosses into the mix the vagaries of fashion and coolness, the eternal struggle between the generations, and - moving between London and Wales - saves some of his best shots for the vagaries of a language suffering from a lack of recognizable vowels. Both barrels are reserved for those who insist on everyone having to learn 'bloody stupid Gaelic names' instead of something more universally practical, like Spanish. As if all that wasn't enough, we also have to contend with a trademarked crusty Greenpeace activist and the uncertainties of life for a mid-30s single mother adrift far from home and wrestling with the worries of being a normal human being. This is a rapid-fire satire that hits its targets repeatedly, whether they be the born-again dead language enthusiast, the ludicrous Welsh TV 'Oscwr' ceremonies, the consequences of a friendless Friday night on the Web, or the fast-buck yearning for enough money to ensure a lifetime wrapped in the salvation of a world consisting of 'linen and agas'. (Kirkus UK)
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In Soho, Paul Salmon, co-producer of the ghastly Britpack Russian Mafia caper Base Metal, is busy chasing his next project, schmoozing it - girls and not taking cocaine. In Pontypool, Dr Jane Feverfew is busy wooing her ludicrous students, fighting her leek-carrying ex and wondering what the hell made her come to a country where she can't even spell the name of her son's school. In Cardiff, the Welsh cultural mafia are busy quaffing Australian cava at the annual Cymru-Wales Oscar ceremony as they plan the disposal of next year's EU grants...Jane hasn't had sex for two years, but there are the same number of passable single men over thirty in Wales as anywhere else: that is, none. Her only excitement in life is a coy e-flirtation. But when she despairingly posts her mock-screenplay of a Spanish classic on the ResistYoof.com website (just to show the sort of crap that Yoof likes) Paul Salmon happens upon it in a moment of coke-fuelled desperation...Salmon lies, cheats and grovels to get the film "Green Lighted" as a Welsh epic, while also turning his lustful attentions onto Jane - who unleashes her secret, lifelong ambition to be a cheerleader or actress, not a bluestocking. As crossed wires, bad faith and wild ambition pile up, Jane dives blithely into the White Powder desert of actors, agents and W1 clubs, where old friends count for nothing, new ones count for less and the big, bad mother of all come-downs is waiting just around the next corner. As Soho is annihilated in a firestorm of drugs, extra virgin oil and fennel, Jane comes to her senses too late - or at least, too late for salvation to come from any but the most unlikely of quarters...James Hawes's fourth novel takes his not-quite-innocent heroine on a wildly comic journey from the eccentricities of Wales into the unholy Soho movie-world which he came to know whilst co-producing the notoriously disastrous film version of his second bestseller, "Rancid Aluminium".
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James Hawes's attention to detail and canny observations of the minutiae of life ensure a constant supply of laughs throughout this fast-paced and acerbic yarn. That he helped turned one of his previous novels - Rancid Aluminium - into what the Guardian considered to be 'the worst film ever made in the UK' is an obvious source of pride for Hawes. The experience was clearly an inspiration to him, for it is the world of the British film industry, and specifically the obnoxious individuals living in it, that provides him with much of the raw material for this, his fourth novel. Admittedly the designer-label-obsessed, cocaine-snaffling denizens of Soho's drinking dens are a fairly easy target, yet the author approaches their awful superficiality, prodigious drug consumption and weird sexual peccadilloes with perfect irreverence. Hawes also tosses into the mix the vagaries of fashion and coolness, the eternal struggle between the generations, and - moving between London and Wales - saves some of his best shots for the vagaries of a language suffering from a lack of recognizable vowels. Both barrels are reserved for those who insist on everyone having to learn 'bloody stupid Gaelic names' instead of something more universally practical, like Spanish. As if all that wasn't enough, we also have to contend with a trademarked crusty Greenpeace activist and the uncertainties of life for a mid-30s single mother adrift far from home and wrestling with the worries of being a normal human being. This is a rapid-fire satire that hits its targets repeatedly, whether they be the born-again dead language enthusiast, the ludicrous Welsh TV 'Oscwr' ceremonies, the consequences of a friendless Friday night on the Web, or the fast-buck yearning for enough money to ensure a lifetime wrapped in the salvation of a world consisting of 'linen and agas'. (Kirkus UK)
Product Description
In Soho, Paul Salmon, co-producer of the ghastly Britpack Russian Mafia caper Base Metal, is busy chasing his next project, schmoozing it - girls and not taking cocaine. In Pontypool, Dr Jane Feverfew is busy wooing her ludicrous students, fighting her leek-carrying ex and wondering what the hell made her come to a country where she can't even spell the name of her son's school. In Cardiff, the Welsh cultural mafia are busy quaffing Australian cava at the annual Cymru-Wales Oscar ceremony as they plan the disposal of next year's EU grants...Jane hasn't had sex for two years, but there are the same number of passable single men over thirty in Wales as anywhere else: that is, none. Her only excitement in life is a coy e-flirtation. But when she despairingly posts her mock-screenplay of a Spanish classic on the ResistYoof.com website (just to show the sort of crap that Yoof likes) Paul Salmon happens upon it in a moment of coke-fuelled desperation...Salmon lies, cheats and grovels to get the film "Green Lighted" as a Welsh epic, while also turning his lustful attentions onto Jane - who unleashes her secret, lifelong ambition to be a cheerleader or actress, not a bluestocking. As crossed wires, bad faith and wild ambition pile up, Jane dives blithely into the White Powder desert of actors, agents and W1 clubs, where old friends count for nothing, new ones count for less and the big, bad mother of all come-downs is waiting just around the next corner. As Soho is annihilated in a firestorm of drugs, extra virgin oil and fennel, Jane comes to her senses too late - or at least, too late for salvation to come from any but the most unlikely of quarters...James Hawes's fourth novel takes his not-quite-innocent heroine on a wildly comic journey from the eccentricities of Wales into the unholy Soho movie-world which he came to know whilst co-producing the notoriously disastrous film version of his second bestseller, "Rancid Aluminium".
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