Saturday, November 15, 2014

What is John Lawton reading?

Featured at Writers Read: John Lawton, author of Sweet Sunday.

His entry begins:
I’ve just finished The Bone Clocks by the English novelist David Mitchell. It can be tough going in places, but all his work is worth the effort. Like Cloud Atlas this one defies categorisation and shows a similar ability to create different, convincing narrators within a single book. I don’t think he’s won a major Lit prize yet, and...[read on]
About Sweet Sunday, from the publisher:
In Sweet Sunday, John Lawton turns his talents to the United States in a standalone thriller that Lawton’s American fans will be intrigued by and that is an ideal book for readers new to Lawton’s work.

Turner Raines is in his thirties, but he’s already a has-been—among the things he has been are a broken civil rights worker, a law school dropout, and a tenth-rate journalist. But as a private eye, he’s found his niche. In the hot summer of 1969, the Vietnam War is ripping the country to pieces. If your kid dodges the draft, hooks up with a hippie commune, makes a dash for Canada, Raines is the man to find him. That turbulent May of 1969, as Norman Mailer stands for mayor of New York, Raines leaves the city, chasing a draft-dodging punk all the way to Toronto. Nothing goes as planned. By the time Raines gets back to NYC, his oldest friend, a reporter for the Village Voice, is dead, and Raines’s life has changed forever. Following the trail of his friend’s death, he finds himself blasted back to the Texas of his childhood, confronted anew with his divided family and blown into the path of people who know about secret goings-on in Vietnam, stories they may now be willing to tell. Lucky for Raines, he’s a good listener.
Learn more about the book and author at John Lawton's website.

The Page 69 Test: Then We Take Berlin.

Writers Read: John Lawton.

--Marshal Zeringue