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‘The work of a master’ Sunday Times
‘Effortlessly brilliant…a comedy of London life’ Sunday Telegraph
No London neighbourhood more resmbles the restless downstream tide of the Thames than the ragged square mile of Soho. Ask the people who live there, like Christine Yardley, drag queen by night and grey-suited accountant by day; or Len Gates, self-appointed Soho historian and bore; or Jenny Wise, former starlet and now resident lush in the New Kismet club; or even Ellis Hugo Bell, wannabe film producer who dreams of moving to L.A. Daily, nightly, shift by shift, their numbers are swelled by immigrants flocking to work, eat, drink and loiter, from kitchen staff to dress designers, hookers to pushers to punters.
Down into this human rabbit warren one evening slips Alex Singer, a student from Leeds in pursuit of his errant girlfriend, whose search takes him from club to pub and into contact with a rich cross-section of Soho life. Twenty-four hours, three deaths, one fire and one mugging later, seduced, traduced and befriended, Alex is on his way to the Soho Ball.
In this fast, funny and superbly crafted novel, Keith Waterhouse draws a vibrant portrait of London’s liveliest quarter and it’s eccentric inhabitants.
‘Effortlessly brilliant…a comedy of London life’ Sunday Telegraph
No London neighbourhood more resmbles the restless downstream tide of the Thames than the ragged square mile of Soho. Ask the people who live there, like Christine Yardley, drag queen by night and grey-suited accountant by day; or Len Gates, self-appointed Soho historian and bore; or Jenny Wise, former starlet and now resident lush in the New Kismet club; or even Ellis Hugo Bell, wannabe film producer who dreams of moving to L.A. Daily, nightly, shift by shift, their numbers are swelled by immigrants flocking to work, eat, drink and loiter, from kitchen staff to dress designers, hookers to pushers to punters.
Down into this human rabbit warren one evening slips Alex Singer, a student from Leeds in pursuit of his errant girlfriend, whose search takes him from club to pub and into contact with a rich cross-section of Soho life. Twenty-four hours, three deaths, one fire and one mugging later, seduced, traduced and befriended, Alex is on his way to the Soho Ball.
In this fast, funny and superbly crafted novel, Keith Waterhouse draws a vibrant portrait of London’s liveliest quarter and it’s eccentric inhabitants.
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Reviews
Pin-sharp and teeming with gloriously reprehensible characters
The work of a master
Effortlessly brilliant . . . a comedy of London life which tastes as fresh as a new-baked croissant
Waterhouse . . . at his most entertaining and mischievous
As well as being a fast-paced farce, a string of encounters and incidents that could keep a full pub of people entertained for several evenings on end, [it] is an elegy to a vanishing world. Soho the place may not be quite what it was, but in Soho the novel, Waterhouse brings it vibrantly to life
A wonderful evocation of a part of London the author loves and he has succeeded superbly in capturing its sleazy yet alluring nature
Pin-sharp and teeming with gloriously reprehensible characters
The work of a master
Effortlessly brilliant . . . a comedy of London life which tastes as fresh as a new-baked croissant
Waterhouse . . . at his most entertaining and mischievous
As well as being a fast-paced farce, a string of encounters and incidents that could keep a full pub of people entertained for several evenings on end, [it] is an elegy to a vanishing world. Soho the place may not be quite what it was, but in Soho the novel, Waterhouse brings it vibrantly to life
A wonderful evocation of a part of London the author loves and he has succeeded superbly in capturing its sleazy yet alluring nature