Johnny Come Home

Johnny Come Home continues Jake Arnott's fictional exploration of the underbelly of English history begun with the 1960's The Long Firm, and continued through He Kills Coppers, and Truecrime. Arnott sets his latest novel in 1972, centred in the political unrest of the Angry Brigade and the birth of glam rock. In these turbulent times Johnny Come Home explores the emotional and sexual turmoil of his four main characters as they each attempt to forge their identities in this new age. Arnott's strength is in creating characters that feel very real and yet are fictionally placed in the midst of recent social history. He evokes a strong sense of time and place, of central London in the early seventies, and depicts queer lives in a frank, honest and rounded way.
What's more he gets the untimate in appropriate praise - on the cover David Bowie himself is quoted "Whenever he's got a new book out I drop everything". I couldn't say it better myself - a must for the summer reading list!