Starcrossed Book

John Dart is a penniless poet, author of The Failed Stone (98 copies sold). He works in a London bookshop with a man who writes pornography about mermaids (think about it). He has a brittle girlfriend named Petra, who helpfully complements their lovemaking with lurid fantasies about dreadlocked delivery men. But then John's world flips upside down when he has a brief fling with Lee Montana, the world's most famous woman, in town to promote her book (more than 98 copies sold), and the Evening Standard flashes their embrace across page 3. Although everything seems to right itself, John starts to doubt his love for Petra, and when Lee reappears to whisk him off to St Tropez, he's not going to resist. It's clear which side Gill wishes his bread were buttered: his account of a service station clientele as "the gormless, dispossessed drifting of England on the move" is both brilliantly accurate and devastatingly heartless. He seems much happier at home with Lee Montana, conjuring convincingly a "parallel Alice universe" that is the natural habitat of celebrity. And though the final pages self consciously play out a battle between Greek destiny and Hollywood happy endings, Starcrossed is an engaging, pacy novel delivered with considerable panache.--Alan StewartRead More