Still Life with Volkswagens

by Geoff Nicholson

Throughout the land VW Beetles are spontaneously combusting. Nazi skinheads are cruising the streets and a millionaire tycoon and a weather girl have been kidnapped. It falls to Barry Osgathorpe to discover who is responsible.

Genres: Fiction, Novels

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Geoff Nicholson was a British novelist and nonfiction writer. He was educated at the Universities of Cambridge and Essex.

The main themes and features of his books include leading characters with obsessions, characters with quirky views on life, interweaving storylines and hidden subcultures and societies. His books usually contain a lot of black humour. He has also written three works of nonfiction and some short stories. His novel Bleeding London was shortlisted for the 1997 Whitbread Prize.

Reviews

[Petra X · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highly original mostly-fiction mix of humour, autobiography, history and insanity. How anyone could have dreamed up this plot and incorporated the elements of autobiography and history is beyond me. It was funny-peculiar rather than funny-laugh-out-loud, and the whole thing was so unbelievably unlikely that it will definitely make a stunningly brilliant film that will hover somewhere between down-to-earth reality and the reality of someone who lost touch with our general frame of reference rather a long time ago. As is usual with Geoff Nicholson books, its best if you really rather enjoy (reading about) gratuitous violence, nasty sex and individuals you wouldn't want to stand behind in a supermarket queue.

I keep saying I won't read another Geoff Nicholson book - nothing can match up to the sheer snork-your-coffee side-splitting humour of What We Did on Our Holidays, but each book is different and very good in its own way. But I must admit I do have my eye on Flesh Guitar for my next GN book, like his personal obsession with Volkswagens, I think he has a thing for guitars too.

[Tony · Rating 4 out of 5]

Apparently this is the second Volkswagen-themed novel by this British author. I have not as yet read "Street Sleeper," so I can't tell you if this is the better of the two or not. What I can tell you is that is a mostly amusing tale of a number of Brits all bound together in one way or another by Volkswagens. The main problem is that all across England, there are Volkswagen's blowing up left and right. Who is doing and why, and how they can be stopped is the alleged plot which drives this book, but the reader is mostly along for the ride as the main characters search for meaning in their existence. I get the impression that many of the main characters appeared previously in "Street Sleeper," but how long the interval has been in unclear. It's a little tough to describe a novel which culminates in a rave/VW expo under siege by eight neo-Nazi skinheads and their delusional leader, who is questing after a holy grail comprised of a hand carved VW whose sun roof opens to reveal human bone replicas of Hitler and Eva Braun in flagrante... All I can say is that if you have a taste for the quirky, check it out.

[Judy Mann · Rating 1 out of 5]

Feh .That's what I thought.nothing going on.More and more of this tongue in cheek crap which leaves me cold.Sarcasm-is that it? Certainly not very funny.Not funny at all actually.That said what in God's name was the point of this book? And let me say- that the author's personal little asides through out the book did him more harm than good because he describes himself as a complete asshole-which does not bode well for the reader's interest -I mean why read a book when the author sounds like such a twit?
I'm done.

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

Silly, discomfiting in spots, but generally entertaining.

[Will · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got this book due to its VW theme & enjoyed how it explored the many types of people that are Beetle enthusiasts. The plot brings together a number of these characters to reach an explosive ending. The author occasionally gives the reader an aside about his personal life, which initially threw me off until I got used to it. Some readers may find this disruptive. Overall an enjoyable, often funny, work of car-based fiction.

[Troy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A delightful piece of whimsy I happened to glance at while browsing the stacks of Chicago's Myopic Books. TO say this book is weird would be a disservice to its ability to make you turn pages. The story was quirky, the autobiographical asides interesting, and all with this quality I can only identify as British. A fun read.

[Shahara LeFay · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was probably the worst fiction book I have ever finished. I hated it; granted, there was a good bang at the end, but it was not worth slogging through the entire horrible book. If the author is reading this, I apologize, I'm a (sort of) writer too, so let's talk about this book !

[Sam]

fun read. sheer shenaniganry. (yes, that's a word, spell check)

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Geoff Nicholson's books.