Hard Shoulder by Chris Petit
O'Grady comes home from jail to Kilburn weathering the onset of a harsh new climate. This is Mrs Thatcher's Britain. It is a place he recognises, but he feels lost in it. His estranged wife has moved on and up, out to the suburbs; the daughter he barely knew is living with a wealthy record producer. O'Grady lodges in his spinster sister's dreary hotel. Alcohol and the random chances it brings begin to define his life. The only people who want to know him are aware that he is owed money by those for whom he took the fall. They offer him schemes, fantasies: he is expected to perform some action that will change lives. But O'Grady cannot make a decision and cannot act. Hard Shoulder is an evocation of the grey avenues and pubs of Irish London at its most hopeless, a semi-criminal milieu of the lost: north west London has never been more convincingly portrayed. Using and undermining the conventions of the thriller, Petit has written a book that deserves to stand alongside the best that the city has inspired.
Petit has steadily been building a reputation as one of the country's most accomplished thriller writers, and this lean and atmospheric piece will consolidate that reputationSet in the grim world of Mrs Thatcher's Britain, Petit's anti-hero comes home from jail to Kilburn and struggles to recognise the place he left. His estranged wife is gone; his daughter is living with a wealthy record producer. Living in his sister's unprepossessing hotel, he is persuaded to undertake dangerous schemes against those for whom he took the fall. Petit's subject is the seedy criminal milieu of north-west London, with its Irish pubs and disenfranchised inhabitants. As a thriller, this delivers in no uncertain terms; as a character study, it's even more acute.
Chris Petit is a novelist and film-maker. His work in film includes 'Radio On', 'Chinese Boxes' and (with lain Sinclair) 'The Cardinal and the Corpse', 'The Falconer and Asylum' and a forthcoming film on the M25. His first novel Robinson is republished by Granta Books. He has also written The Psatm Killer (1997) and Back From the Dead (1999). He lives in London.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781862074620 |
| ISBN 10 | 1862074623 |
| Title | Hard Shoulder |
| Author | Chris Petit |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Granta Books |
| Year published | 2001-08-22 |
| Number of pages | 224 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |