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Dirty White Boy: Tales of Soho |  | Author: Clayton Littlewood
Publisher: Cleis Press
Category: Book
List Price: £10.99
Buy New: £4.81
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Seller: UKPaperbackshop
Rating:  16 reviews
Sales Rank: 36134
Media: Paperback
Pages: 350
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5 x 0.9
ISBN: 1573443301
Dewey Decimal Number: 381.10866420942132
EAN: 9781573443302
ASIN: 1573443301
Publication Date: October 2, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| • | New | | • | Mint Condition | | • | Dispatch same day for order received before 12 noon | | • | Guaranteed packaging | | • | No quibbles returns |
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 16
Dirty White Boy - Get it. Read it. Love it. July 4, 2010
S. Foxhall (London)
You just HAVE to buy and read this entirely brilliant book: it is a deliciously compelling and captivating page-turner, beautifully crafted at all times!
The pace of events is perfectly dictated by the quick-fire diary format it adopts throughout, with past and present stories often linking in a totally fascinating way, as time passes before you along London's most famous and colourful street.
DWB has just about everything a beautiful true-to-life story should contain: it is genuinely touching and sometimes desperately sad in equal measure - and in all the right places.
It captures the often strange, but always powerful, emotions belonging to numerous, real, bizarre characters and it sensitively explores empty hearts searching for belonging, acceptance and love. It also has its fair share of nutters for you to enjoy too!
There are frequent `laugh-out-loud' moments on some days (the mass police raid on the up-strairs brothel) while other entirely believable diary entries tell of the minor life tragedies unfolding before the reader's eyes (two ex-lovers, separated for many years, only to be finally reunited, when it is almost too late, in a dark hospital ward on night).
One feels as if the events are quite literally unfolding right in front of you, as the author invites you into his Old Compton Street shop of human curiosities.
Importantly for me, all of the real characters featured are treated with a wonderful degree of decent, warm respect by this amazing author - a relatively unusual, yet lovely, feature these days, where so many other writers can fall into the rather tasteless mainstream publishing trap and go for unpleasant, cheap and sensationalist shots, in order to boost copy sales.
DWB does not do this and earns pure admiration for its integrity.
Get it. Read it. Love it.
Dirty White Boy is the read of the year!
Steve
 dirty white yawn April 22, 2010
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I guess this may have been an effective blog and newspaper column but it did not work for me as a book, with little character development and few interesting insights. A third of the way in he was already writing about publishing it so it became rather self referential as many blooks (blog based books) tend to. It reminded me of the 1984 novel "Queens" but lacks its redeeming qualities.
Wonderful read March 27, 2010
Aiden S (London)
This has got to be the best and warmest chronicling of Soho life. Dirty White Boy has a fabulous stock of great characters, glorious charm and heartwarming wit. I had been given this book as a birthday gift and had thought it might just be another shallow look at London's hedonistic, drug-taking gay scene - the kind of novel the writer Paul Burston churns out with tedious regularity every few years - but I was wonderfully surprised by what I found within its pages. I heartily recommend this.
A must read!!!! February 21, 2010
Scott London (London UK)
This is a hilarious, no holds barred account of the true Soho. Fabulously accurate and a real birds-eye view of the Soho we love and hate.
Clayton's commentary on the day to day goings on in my favourite part of town has taught even me things I didn't know, but a lot of what he says rings so true.
I love it and highly recommend it.
Fantastic read!
Soho, full of character, full of characters... October 5, 2009
J. PARDOE (London, UK)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I bought this book kind of by mistake and I am glad I did: I loved it. The shop he ran in Soho with his partner gave Clayton Littlewood the perfect position for people-watching; not only do interesting people come into his shop but if anything interesting happens in the street outside he just starts polishing the windows! Having a brothel upstairs just makes it more interesting.
This could have been just a collection of disconnected episodes but the author manages to find enough continuity in his stories to make it more than that. The episodes form a story, one that draws us in. One sub-plot, in particular starts off as light humour but ends up as something really quite poignant, providing him with a touching and satisfying ending. He also brings enough of his own life into the story to make you feel that he's not just an observer but part of the story too.
Recommended!
Showing reviews 1-5 of 16
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