Toby Litt

Ed Brubaker and Bryan Talbot, two creators I respect loads, had a fist at a Dead Boy Detective miniseries, and it didn't really work. It's pretty hard to replicate the charm Neil Gaiman brought to Edwin and Charles in their introduction in one of the best issues of his Sandman run, an interlude in the middle of Season Of Mists when the souls released by Lucifer have all returned to Earth and Death is running around trying to round them up. Getting their voices right is probably impossible if show more you're not Neil Gaiman. Toby Litt doesn't quite manage it - the prelude adventure here is a bit weak and not very promising. The series proper kicks off, however, with the introduction of Crystal Palace, a cutting-edge contemporary personality, privileged daughter of self-obsessed performance-artist Mum and ex-rock star Dad who is welded to her phone and computer as well as engaged in a big online game and the subject of media scrutiny - an enfant terrible in the making. With Edwin haling from 1916 and Charles from 1990, the addition of a child of the new century is entirely appropriate and she works as a foil to their terrible innocence.

After a performance art stunt goes wrong, Edwin and Charles rescue Crystal, but her glimpse of the supernatural sends her to enroll in their old school where very evil doings are afoot, and old school bullies and new stalk the dorms. By this time, Litt has stamped his own mark on the series and made it his own, you stop comparing the boys' voices in this series to their voices as written by Gaiman, and with typically lovely Mark Buckingham art it turns into a wonderful modern supernatural adventure. show less

Two (or Three) Flew Over the Nun's Nest
Review of the Galley Beggar Press general release (grey cover) edition (2019)

This was an extraordinary caper comedy about Elliott, a boy in a wheelchair with cerebral palsy, and his blind friend Jim and how they work towards an escape into the outdoor world from the orphanage / institution where they live under the care of several nuns. I don't want to overstate my Cuckoo's Nest parallel too much, so I'll quickly say here that the nuns are pretty benign show more and there is no dominant evil Nurse Ratched character, although Sister Britta is the one most flagged as the disciplinarian. There is another older boy Charlie though who is a bully and the main antagonist.

The extraordinary element is that Elliott can't speak beyond several wordless approximations of language and can only slightly move one hand and somewhat jiggle his wheelchair and Jim, as stated, is blind. These two still manage to create a means of communication about which it would be somewhat spoilery to get into details. Suffice it say that Elliott is very gifted musically and is able to hum melodies quite easily and Jim is pretty good at that as well. Also there are a few reasons the book is set in 1979 in a pre-digital age. One of these reasons is that the main early Beatles Greatest Hits collections were the so-called Red Album (Beatles 1962-1966) and Blue Album (Beatles 1967-1970) issued in 1974 in various formats including cassette tapes.

I will confess to a bit of hesitancy when I started this book as stream-of-consciousness novels can often require a lot of concentration in order to keep up with the mental leaps. But it all flowed so naturally and smoothly that there were really few issues in keeping up with Elliott (who you have to accept is writing this as a memoir having the added advantage of later technological and medical breakthroughs that he refers to towards the end of the book). Also, don't be put off by the back cover blurb that refers to "30 to 40 pages of tears". This book is not a tragedy and your tears may be those of joy or laughter.

This was easily one of my top reads of 2019 and I also took advantage of a recent Galley Beggar Press sale offering to pick up additional copies as future gifts for reading friends who might otherwise miss it.

Patience was one of the selections in Shakespeare and Company's 2019 Year of Reading subscription series which is an excellent annual curated series. You can see the variety of the 2019 selections on this tagged shelf. show less

This is a band memoir from the drummer (Clap - real name Brian) of a fictional indies rock group that taste all the highs and most of the lows that the music business has to offer. It's told in vignette form and jumps around in place and time quite a bit which may cause some confusion but as I read this in one sitting (ah! the joys of working the nightshift!) it worked out just fine for me. The rest of the band, Syph (Charismatic (read "gets all the girls") vocalist), Crab (Guitar, show more alcoholic) and Mono (Bassist) are brought to visual life as the narrator spills the beans on the sex, drugs and rock 'n roll lifestyle that spans more than 20 years. There's a nice touch at the end of the book with a where are they now and discography section which could help with the chronology.

Often hilariously funny it can also become quite poignant at times. Not only do you get to hear of some of the excesses of life in the music business but also some light-hearted moments that are really sweet such as the groupie who gets left at a hotel as the band are whisked away on promotional events only to return 10 days later to find she's still there but hasn't run up a room service bill or even touched the mini-bar. Stylistically, I'd put this book somewhere in between Nick Hornby and Douglas Coupland adding in a little Martin Millar along the way but the author has a voice all his own and one which I want to hear more of. show less

Before this newly compiled edition of Free Country I had never read the original two issues, but I can definitely see why they rewrote the middle section of the story to bind the two halves better together. Even with the extensive editing that went on, a few moments of dissonance remain between the two halves - nothing to really interrupt the story as a whole, but I definitely noticed that not all of the "special" childrens' summoning stories were included and found a few of Charles' and show more Rowland's trials to be a bit fluffy. The whole story of the Free Country as a safe haven for children is one that is very intriguing, though, especially considering some of the historical content that Gaiman wrote into the initial story and how this character of the evil priest returns as a magically subsidized entity. Overall, it's not a very tightly woven story and could use some further editing (and some additional mini-episodes to flesh out some of the details and characters), but it's definitely an entertaining read and an amusing example of Vertigo's early attempt at a crossover series. show less