Anthony Quinn

[Nigeyb]

Thanks Mark - that's all really interesting and helpful. I will definitely be getting back to Quinn.

[Susan]

His new novel is up for request on NetGalley (I posted on the NetGalley thread on 20th Century yesterday), in case anyone is interested.

[Nigeyb]

Thanks Susan - I must have missed that post yesterday (not sure how though). Off to request now.

[Nigeyb]

Thanks again Susan. Sounds v promising...




Our Friends in Berlin

London, 1941. The city is in blackout, besieged by nightly air raids from Germany. Two strangers are about to meet. Between them they may alter the course of the war.

While the Blitz has united the nation, there is an enemy hiding in plain sight. A group of British citizens is gathering secret information to aid Hitler’s war machine. Jack Hoste has become entangled in this treachery, but he also has a particular mission: to locate the most dangerous Nazi agent in the country.

Hoste soon receives a promising lead. Amy Strallen, who works in a Mayfair marriage bureau, was once close to this elusive figure. Her life is a world away from the machinations of Nazi sympathisers, yet when Hoste pays a visit to Amy’s office, everything changes in a heartbeat.

Breathtakingly tense and trip-wired with surprises, Our Friends in Berlin is inspired by true events. It is a story about deception and loyalty – and about people in love who watch each other as closely as spies.

[Mark]

Thanks for the tip on his forthcoming one... seems like something worth looking forward to.

It also seems to have its roots in the events chronicled so brilliantly in Paul Willetts’ Rendezvous At The Russian Tea Rooms, but that might just be me wishfully reading between the lines. Time’ll tell, and, for me, that time can’t come soon enough. Will pre-order as soon as possible.

[Mark]

Presently reading Quinn’s latest, Our Friends In Berlin, and rating it very highly... it’s up there among his finest, so far, with no signs of veering in the opposite direction. Very evocative passages of life under the blackout, and some engaging sub-plots weaving in and out.

[Nigeyb]

Thanks for the update Mark.


You've given me a much need prompt to read it - and reassured me that AQ's quality control is still present and correct

Looking forward to it even more now

[Mark]

If anything, he seems to be getting better and better, at least when tracing his entire output. I wouldn’t be surprised if The Erskine Trilogy is eventually acknowledged as his high point, but Our Friends In Berlin finds him keeping to those same standards and not cutting corners.

I was a bit hesitant to read it, really, especially immediately after aborting all efforts to finish Cathi Unsworth’s That Old Black Magic -- my initial hesitancy being that maybe I’d finally had my fill of novels set during the Blitz/Blackout. That wasn’t the case, though, and I was absorbed in Our Friends In Berlin right from the start. It’s one to make me miss my subway stops!

[Nigeyb]

Sounds wonderful Mark. Thanks again. My levels of anticipation have been further ratcheted up.

Sorry to hear about That Old Black Magic - I enjoyed that one too.

[Mark]

Without wanting to give anything away, I’ve just finished Our Friends In Berlin and find myself wanting to believe that it marks the start of another trilogy from Anthony Quinn.

[Mark]

It looks like there’s a new one on its way from Anthony Quinn...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0...

[Nigeyb]

Excellent news - thanks Mark

[Nigeyb]

An unexpected subject for a Quinn book though - I had no idea he was a Liverpool fan

[Nigeyb]

Another book due in Feb 2021..


London, Burning

London, Burning is a novel about the end of the 1970s, and the end of an era. It concerns a nation divided against itself, a government trembling on the verge of collapse, a city fearful of what is to come, and a people bitterly suspicious of one another. In other words, it is also a novel about now.

Vicky Tress is a young policewoman on the rise who becomes involved in a corruption imbroglio with CID. Hannah Strode is an ambitious young reporter with a speciality for skewering the rich and powerful. Callum Conlan is a struggling Irish academic and writer who falls in with the wrong people. While Freddie Selves is a hugely successful theatre impresario stuck deep in a personal and political mire of his own making. These four characters, strangers at the start, happen to meet and affect the course of each other's lives profoundly.

The story plots an unpredictable path through a city choked by strikes and cowed by bomb warnings. It reverberates to the sound of alarm and protest, of police sirens, punk rock, street demos, of breaking glass and breaking hearts in dusty pubs. As the clock ticks down towards a general election old alliances totter and the new broom of capitalist enterprise threatens to sweep all before it. It is funny and dark, violent but also moving.

[Mark]

I saw that listed as a pre-order on Amazon UK just the other, and thought it looked promising. The only decision that needs making in my head is whether to pull the pre-order trigger, or sit it out until it comes out in paperback. Either way, I’ll be reading it.

[Nigeyb]

Me too Mark


Right up my street

[Nigeyb]

Mark wrote: "I saw London, Burning listed as a pre-order on Amazon UK just the other, and thought it looked promising. The only decision that needs making in my head is whether to pull the pre-order trigger, or sit it out..."

I've got an advanced copy of London, Burning from Netgalley which I will be reading soon.

Watch this space

London, Burning is a novel about the end of the 1970s, and the end of an era. It concerns a nation divided against itself, a government trembling on the verge of collapse, a city fearful of what is to come, and a people bitterly suspicious of one another. In other words, it is also a novel about now.

Vicky Tress is a young policewoman on the rise who becomes involved in a corruption imbroglio with CID. Hannah Strode is an ambitious young reporter with a speciality for skewering the rich and powerful. Callum Conlan is a struggling Irish academic and writer who falls in with the wrong people. While Freddie Selves is a hugely successful theatre impresario stuck deep in a personal and political mire of his own making. These four characters, strangers at the start, happen to meet and affect the course of each other's lives profoundly.

The story plots an unpredictable path through a city choked by strikes and cowed by bomb warnings. It reverberates to the sound of alarm and protest, of police sirens, punk rock, street demos, of breaking glass and breaking hearts in dusty pubs. As the clock ticks down towards a general election old alliances totter and the new broom of capitalist enterprise threatens to sweep all before it. It is funny and dark, violent but also moving.

[Mark]

I envy you that. Very much looking forward to reading your thoughts as you wind your way through. Quinn’s track record leaves me thinking it’s one to buy without hesitation.

[Nigeyb]

I'm loving....


London, Burning (2021)

As usual Anthony Quinn evokes a palpable sense of time and place, here it’s London in the late 1970s. The beleaguered city is in the grip of strike action with the Callaghan government on its last legs and Thatcher waiting in the wings, elsewhere the IRA are planting bombs, the Metropolitan Police are blighted by corruption, and punk rock is part of the soundtrack.

London, Burning tells the story of four disparate characters whose stories overlap and converge. It’s very cleverly executed and each character is compelling and interesting. It's all building up to a gripping finale

[Mark]

No surprise, really, but still very good to hear such a ringing endorsement. I’ll do my best to hold out until it’s published in paperback, but will likely spent much of that time scouring the usual online sources for hardbacks going cheap.

[Nigeyb]

I've now finished....


London, Burning (2021)

You'll love it Mark

Review here...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

5/5

[Mark]

You’re determined that I splash out on the hardback edition, aren’t you? You know that I’m impressionable, you know my weak spots, and you’re trying to manipulate me. I think it’s working.

[Nigeyb]

You're an easy Mark (see what I did there)

[Mark]

Well played, sir.

[David]

There’s a rather lengthy review of London’s Burning (cue Terry Chimes’s snare rat tat-ta-ta-ta-tat) in Strong Words 26 just published.
Too long for me to transcribe, unfortunately.
Probably of more interest is a Q&A with the author (again lengthy, over two pages).
It’s under Ed Needham’s “Irresistible New Fiction” listing.
The sub-headline “Liverpool has always been quite contrary and locked into fighting the power. It is just the way the city is” pleases me a lot.

[David]

I forgot to flag it up at the time I listened to it, but Quinn talks here about his Jurgen Klopp book. I was quire charmed by it.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1KtD...

[Nigeyb]

Thanks David - will give that a listen

[David]

https://amp.theguardian.com/books/202...

[Nigeyb]

Great review - thanks David

[David]

The only Quinn title available via my local library’s Borrow Box app is Eureka!, and that in audiobook.

It’s addictive. I’ve been listening via Bluetooth earbuds at all times of the day and night, and I’m almost distressed that I have only 52 minutes audio left of a marathon 12 hour listen.

Quinn’s sense of time, place and culture are very Hamiltonesque, which is probably the highest praise I can offer.

I’m relatively new to audiobooks, but Kim Hicks’s narration is beguiling (there’s a temptation to see what else she’s narrated) supported by actors wholly believable as the characters they’re portraying.

[Nigeyb]

Splendid. I thoroughly enjoyed Eureka too

[Mark]

David wrote: "The only Quinn title available via my local library’s Borrow Box app is Eureka!..."

Had you already read the first two books in the trilogy, or are you intentionally going in reverse order? Just curious!

[David]

Nothing so cantankerously anarchic, Mark! Quinn’s name just caught my eye in the library’s audiobook offer, and it was immediately available, so I grabbed it having been enthused by the recent podcast where I heard him discussing his Jurgen Klopp biog, and Strong Words’ feature on the same volume.

I’ve read various authors’ “series” in a non-linear order before, and have usually found that each book, due to authorial or editorial craft, stands as well on its own as it does as part of a series.

With about 6 minutes left of its duration (I’ve been awake listening since around 0400 here), I’m disappointed that it’s nearly over, but it’s been some trip. I’ll be working my way through the rest of Quinn’s canon if the literary gods spare me and the creek don’t rise.

[Mark]

I can’t say whether or not you’re right in that, but in the case of Quinn’s trilogy, I think you’re right. I read -- and loved -- Freya without knowing that it was the middle of a trilogy. In the end, I read the trilogy in a 2-1-3 order without feeling like I was making any grand sacrifices. Although, looking back and piecing things together, I want to eventually read them all again, in order, to fully appreciate the intended flow.

[David]

I know what you mean, Mark.

[Mark]

I’ve just stumbled upon evidence of a new Anthiny Quinn novel, titled Molly & The Captain, to be published 27.10.2022.

I’m in, with neither hesitation nor reservation.

From the publisher...

A celebrated artist of the Georgian era paints his two young daughters at the family home in Bath. The portrait, known as "Molly &the Captain", becomes instantly famous, its fate destined to echo down the centuries, touching many lives.

In the summer of 1889 a young man sits painting a line of elms in Kensington Gardens. One day he glimpses a mother at play with her two daughters and decides to include them in his picture. From that moment he is haunted by dreams that seem to foreshadow his doom.

A century later, in Kentish Town, a painter and her grown-up daughters receive news of an ancestor linking them to the long-vanished double portrait of "Molly &the Captain". Meanwhile friendship with a young musician stirs unexpected passions and threatens to tear the family apart.

Molly & the Captain is a story about time and art and love. Through the prism of a single painting it examines the mysteries of creativity, and the ambiguous nature of success. What weighs more, loyalty to one's talent or loyalty to one's blood? Does self-sacrifice ennoble the soul or degrade it? And what does it mean to speak of the past when its hold on the present is inescapable?

Through Anthony Quinn's signature gifts - period subtlety, intricate characterisation and storytelling verve this triptych novel melds three families and three centuries into a single vision of human frailty and longing.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Molly-Captai...

[Nigeyb]

Great news Mark


Thanks - sounds another Quinn goodie

I still have a copy of his Berlin book to read, gotta get to it

I'm currently ploughing my way through the epic The Life Times of Malcolm McLaren: The Biography

[Mark]

I envy you for still having Our Friends In Berlin ahead of you. I really enjoyed that one, and am sure that you will as well. So far, there’s really no weakest link in his bibliography, at least not in my opinion. We’re lucky that he’s so prolific.

How is the Malcy book? It’s been on my radar, of course, but have yet to take the punt. In my mind, it’s very similar to On Some Faraway Beach, the Eno biography -- the period of his life that really interests me is comparatively small, and I haven’t got much interest at all in the rest.

One day when I was working at Sotheby’s, maybe around 2007, a co-worker approached me with the offer of an invitation to an event that she couldn’t attend. Some incredibly wealthy patrons of the Arts were hosting an event in their massive apartment, which overlooked Central Park, in which Malcolm was to be engaged in a Q&A in front of a very small and exclusive crowd. Of course we leapt at the chance. We even spoke with him afterwards, which was always going to happen because we were CLEARLY the only people in the room who were clued-up about punk rock. Any road, my point is... I went to the event already somewhat despising him in my mind, knowing what a manipulative, self-serving bastard he was, but left with the realisation that his gift was his charm -- he immediately charmed us into his corner, and was warm as you like. I’ve no idea how he did that, but he did. He had an innate knack for disarming and charming.

Anyhow, that’s my Malcolm story.

[Nigeyb]

Mark wrote:


"I envy you for still having Our Friends in Berlin ahead of you. I really enjoyed that one, and am sure that you will as well. So far, there’s really no weakest link in his bibliography"

I'm sure that's right Mark. I've loved everything I've read so far

"How is the Malcy book? It’s been on my radar, of course, but have yet to take the punt. In my mind, it’s very similar to On Some Faraway Beach, the Eno biography -- the period of his life that really interests me is comparatively small, and I haven’t got much interest at all in the rest."

I'm loving it so far. Nearly 200 pages down and it's still the early 70s - Let It Rock / Too Fast To Live era. His childhood was very dysfunctional.

[David]

I binged on the entire Quinn catalogue (except the Klopp book) between December and January, and it was like when Searching For The Young Soul Rebels ended with Kev echoing my Man Lee Dorsey’s funk undertaking, when I turned the final leaf of London, Burning. Just gimme more!

I’m overjoyed at the news of another Quinn book in the offing. Thanks for the info, Mark.

[David]

Good news on the Quinn front…

https://amp.theguardian.com/books/202...

[Nigeyb]

David wrote:


"Good news on the Quinn front…

https://amp.theguardian.com/books/202..."

Hurrah

Looking forward to Molly & the Captain

Quinn’s most ambitious book to date and decidedly his best

I've still got to get to my copy of Our Friends in Berlin. I might read it whilst I am in Berlin next month 💡🤠

Back to Molly, this is very encouraging...

Molly & the Captain is a rollicking read. Sweeping across centuries in its three interlinked sections, it summons the past effortlessly, as the vehicle for a plot that is both intricate and immaculately constructed. It feels like a kind of consummation of his career to date, giving us a series of moving love stories, a gripping mystery and some unforgettable characters, all of them tied together by their relationship to two paintings: Molly and the Captain, a work by the fictional 18th-century artist William Merrymount (who appears to be based upon Gainsborough), and Portrait of a Young Man, by Merrymount’s daughter, Laura.

[David]

That’s me done with Molly and the Captain. A bit of a difference in tone for our Anthony, but he’s pulled another splendid iron from the fire.

Having driven over the cliff of my limited IT abilities, I hope that this URL, giving my immediate thoughts, works:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Nigeyb]

Wow. Sold. Thanks David 👏🏻

[David]

From behind The Scotsman’s paywall…

https://archive.ph/n8FwI

[Nigeyb]

That sounds very promising


Thanks David

I need to catch up on my unread Quinns. He's never let me down

[David]

I think I’ve read them all, primarily because of recommendations in this ‘ere manor.

I’d no inkling of a new Quinn treat until I spied the review in yesterday’s Scotsman this morning.

I’ll get in the queue.

[Nigeyb]

It was Mark I recall who first identified and shouted about his talent 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

[David]

I believe you’re correct.

Thanks Mark. *mimes doffing of non-existent headgear*

[David]

Two of our still-functioning city libraries have copies, and I’ll be taking loanership in about two weeks time.