BOOK REVIEWS

      I have dispensed with my 'Books of the Year' postings  which covered the years 2009 and 2010, and now attempt to review a selection of books that I have read both good and bad, in editions old and new. Much of what I buy is often based on suggestions by others, or some train of thought that makes me think "maybe I should try..." so they are not necessarily all strange/supernatural fiction.
       With many small press books costing around £35-£40 each, and some seemingly worthy tomes changing hands on the second hand market for many times that, these reviews may also give the potential purchaser some indication of what they might receive for their money. Needless to say, my opinions should not be given any great value as I bring my own foibles to every review and these may change at any time.

Iain Sinclair


'The Face On The Fork

A William Burroughs Tripitch'

Beat Scene  2012
pp40(approx)  £6.95 in UK, £7.95 overseas.

    Iain Sinclair is a often cited as one of the leading 'psychogeographic' authors of the day. His works in both prose and poetry, it is often hard to distinguish which is which, musing the forces of big business or those who might be 'providing a new service to its customers' highlighting the effects on  the physical and spiritual landscapes it impacts upon, often via a journey of sorts; a walk in poet John Clares' footsteps; a circuit of Londons M25, or a visit to the Millenium Dome in which the mental associations evoked are as important as the concrete or tarmac  observed and noted.

    This small chapbook, explores Sinclairs relationship to Burroughs; firstly via 1960s correspondence for a magazine Sinclair was joint editing which  includes the text Burroughs sent, 'The Albatross Text'; secondly in the form of a script for an aborted German TV short on him and finally a 1995  encounter with him.

    It is a memoir full of the asides and poetic writing that make Sinclair so fascinating to read; Ballard, Moorcock and Ginsburg  appear and disappear; and as he travelled to Texas "I pictured us as the two characters from Don Siegel’s film of The Killers, the silver-suited hit men. And that became the motif of my own story, when I came to report this episode. We were agents of fate, not really implicated in the complex Burroughs biography; hirelings in town for an afternoon, to do a job. Nail the mark on tape. Get the shot." 

    Published in a tiny edition of 125 numbered and signed copies it'll disappear in no time, so order it quickly from here.