Sanderson's Isle
'A raucous, Technicolor scream' Sunday Times
Book
Paperback/Softback
320 pages
978-1-78816-354-5 (ISBN)
Description
'What a narrator. How Speake speaks. How he bends your ear, and your heart. Sanderson's Isle sometimes reads like a lost John Braine or David Storey novel. There's even a touch of Ted Lewis in its elemental fatalism. It's that good' Tom Benn, author of Oxblood
Speake comes to London in 1969 to look for the father he has never known. He finds Sanderson instead, a larger-than-life TV presenter who hosts 'midweek madness' parties at his house where the punch is spiked with acid. There Speake meets Marnie and promises to help her find her adoptive child, who has been taken by her birth mother, a member of a hippie cult rumoured to be living off-grid in the Lake District.
Forced to lie low after a violent outburst, Speake joins Sanderson on a tour of the Lake District, where he's researching his TV series and a tie-in book, Sanderson's Isle. Both men become fascinated by rumours of the cult, and decide to go in search of them. Amid the fierce beauty of the mountains, the cult is making a new kind of life, living to rules the square world can't understand. There its members are forming the kind of community that Speake - a drifter who belongs nowhere - is desperate to find, but has been sent to betray.
Speake comes to London in 1969 to look for the father he has never known. He finds Sanderson instead, a larger-than-life TV presenter who hosts 'midweek madness' parties at his house where the punch is spiked with acid. There Speake meets Marnie and promises to help her find her adoptive child, who has been taken by her birth mother, a member of a hippie cult rumoured to be living off-grid in the Lake District.
Forced to lie low after a violent outburst, Speake joins Sanderson on a tour of the Lake District, where he's researching his TV series and a tie-in book, Sanderson's Isle. Both men become fascinated by rumours of the cult, and decide to go in search of them. Amid the fierce beauty of the mountains, the cult is making a new kind of life, living to rules the square world can't understand. There its members are forming the kind of community that Speake - a drifter who belongs nowhere - is desperate to find, but has been sent to betray.
Reviews / Votes
Sanderson's Isle is a hugely enjoyable sex and drug fuelled human drama, set against the gritty backdrops of 1960's London and the Lake District. Clarke's vivid writing brings his characters fully to life, each one grappling in their own way with the social turbulence at the dawn of the space age. A powerful and deeply engaging read -- Lee Schofield, author of Wild Fell What a narrator. How Speake speaks. How he bends your ear, and your heart. Sanderson's Isle sometimes reads like a lost John Braine or David Storey novel. There's even a touch of Ted Lewis in its elemental fatalism. It's that good -- Tom Benn, author of Oxblood His prose is generous and electrifying, unjudgemental and assured. A brilliant new talent * Colin Barrett * Intriguing and unsettling ... [Clarke] has a terrific gift for the uncomfortable and threatening scene as the novel cartwheels its way to a conclusion both spectacular and sordid * Times Literary Supplement * Praise for James Clarke * : * A magic portrayal of life in the peripheries * Amy Liptrot * [Clarke] writes with relish ... a ferocious portrait of a time and place * Guardian * Gorgeous, luxurious language propels a motley crew of characters as they beg, borrow, beat and maneuver their ways up and down the country, through TV shows, derelict stations, weird communes, lockhouses and forests. Extraordinarily mapped and cinematic in its sense of place, character and time through a powerful narrative voice, this is a portrait of riotous, joyful, mystical, horrible and high little Englanders that I loved. -- Rachael Allen, author of Kingdomland * Rachael Allen *More details
Edition
Main
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Profile Books Ltd
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 129 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-78816-354-5 (9781788163545)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
07/2023
Serpent's Tail
€14.49
Available for download
Person
James Clarke was born in Manchester in 1985 and grew up in the Rossendale Valley, Lancashire. His debut novel The Litten Path was published by Salt and won the 2019 Betty Trask Prize.