Kelly and Victor (Jonathan Cape Original) Book

It's the dawn of the new millennium and most people in Liverpool are coping with a thousand-year hangover. But in the midst of the debris, two people have found something wonderful: Kelly and Victor have found each other--and after just a few hours, they can't believe they were ever apart. In this harsh city, where hard men rule and ordinary people only work in order to pay for their next weekend of oblivion, a pair of young lovers has suddenly found a new reason to live. But love proves to be a more a dangerous drug than anything they could score on the streets. Written from the dual perspective of its two doomed protagonists, Kelly and Victor might be described as a modern love story. But despite moments of great tenderness, this is no book for romantics. Niall Griffiths' distinctive brand of Mersey-dark realism--well established in the underground classics Grits and Sheepshagger--is entering uncharted territory here, laying bare the least-visited quarters of human desire. This is a powerful, often frightening tale, in which people capable of the purest acts of love are also capable of violence and fatal obsessions. We might now be well into the third millennium, but Kitty and Victor's compelling message is that the Dark Ages are far from over. --Matthew BaylisRead More