The novel is a study of a restless, angry young man toughing it out amidst the underclass of north west London. The focus of the book is Jack Evans, an Irish labourer who is struggling to assess his role in life and who slowly comes to realise the desolation of his existence.
Click on the links below to read extracts from the book.
Ugliness
I didn't know which hurt more, my hangover or my conscience.
But, when it comes down to it, it doesn't really matter, does it? I mean, to me at least they're pretty much one and the same. Each blended with the other, mixing and matching the physical pain of withdrawal with the biting pulse of regret until I couldn't tell what it was I felt anymore, only that the constant ache of it was well and truly defeating me.
Memory
Is this all that I am? And, am I all that we are?
It seemed to me at the time that I had become nothing more than a random confusion of memories. Ideas, recollections, events, and thoughts all conspired to render themselves imperceptible to me. For I was convinced that I could no longer remember. But, it was not so. I had simply chosen to forget. For ignorance was bliss to the unenlightened. Its laziness soaks into you like a disease. And, I had become infected.
The End of the Beginning
. . . . he turned around and walked a few paces back, and then laughed out loud at me.
"Money I owe you? Jesus Evans. Do you not know how the world works?"
He used his forefinger spiralling in an ever-increasing spherical motion to indicate his rancid thoughts. "It spins around and around and never stops, you see? And every day more and more whiney useless monkeys like you get spun off into space. And just forgotten about, you see? Do you know what the meaning of life is, Evans? Do you not know how the world works? It's all about gravity see? And people like you just haven't got any gravity, that's why you can't hold on. That's why you get spun off into space."
"I know how the world works," I said as I suddenly pushed forward and grabbed him by his lapels, walking as fast and assuredly as I could towards the edge. He had a low centre of gravity and he would be impossible to knock over. And he was a tough bastard we all knew that. But he was old and he was fat. And he wasn't expecting this.
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