Paperback 6" x 9" 183 pages ISBN 978-1-326-78146-0
Published October 2016
This is Ken
Champion’s best novel to date. Tightly written and surprising, its
main character, Vincent, is one of the author’s ’ vivid working
class men who, after a university education, lives a life at once
rich in social observation and sense perceptions and awash with
anger at a world that doesn't allow any real integration between his
roots and present life. A professor of racially diverse adult
students and a wanderer through London, Vincent begins an
emotionally intriguing journey with a woman who lives in the vintage
clothes of a past era, the story line following their relationship.
The end is determined both by Vincent’s dissatisfactions and by the
shock of the brutal, random events of real life. It’s an unusual,
gripping book.
Meredith Sue Willis, Hamilton Stone
Review, USA (2016)
I really enjoyed Ken Champion’s latest
novel and am still thinking about its characters. It portrays the
lives of a small group of contemporary people who have links to the
music and fashion re-enactment scenes of the 1940s and ‘50s. He
sensitively explores their involvement with them, their connections
to each other, and the losses that have shaped them.
Cultural influences, particularly
cinematic scenes, are used imaginatively as themes, while class
divisions, diversity, and the use of language are sharply observed.
Acute insights into the demands and freedom of city life and of
academia further make this novel an absorbing read.
This is a writer who pays intense
attention to the extraordinary details of ordinary life.
Joanna Ezekiel, 2016
Ken Champion is an internationally published
writer, novelist and poet whose work has appeared in literary
journals in the US and extensively in magazines and anthologies in
the UK.
A volume of short stories, Urban Narratives
(2013), a novel, The Dramaturgical Metaphor (2014) and a
collection of poetry, Cameo Metro (2014) have been published
by Penniless Press Publications. A pamphlet, African Time
(2002), chapbook, Cameo Poly (2004) and a first collection,
But Black and White Is Better (2008, reprinted
2010) are published by Tall Lighthouse. He is a
South Magazine Profiled Poet and a reviewer.
A selection of his poems and fiction can be
found at The Poetry Library and at
www.kenchampion.org.uk
Ken lectures in sociology and lives in London.
