Product Description

In an attic in Southwest London, an acid factory has just been dismantled. Six students, among them the luminously sexy Belle, are speeding in a decommissioned ambulance towards a tiny cottage in the Welsh borders. Two homicidal drug dealers and one middle-aged police inspector are giving chase. Meanwhile, Belle’s jilted lover Angus stares out of his cottage window at shadows sliding across the grassy hillside, listens to squirrels fidgeting in the eaves and turns his thoughts to a squadron of young Japanese pilots, setting out from a Kyushu airstrip in 1945 intent on restarting the Second World War. And that’s just the beginning...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #887508 in Books
• Published on: 2002-06-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

About the Author
Tom Bullough, age 26, grew up on a Welsh hill farm. He has worked as a music promoter in Zimbabwe and as a firewood deliveryman in Wales. Sort Of Books were originally going to publish a travel book by Tom but when they read this debut novel, written on leaving university, they changed tack entirely. Read it and see why.

Customer Reviews

A is for Acid (Duh!)
This debut novel starts slow as molasses and chock full of cliché, picks up about a third of the way in, and ends up delivering a reasonably entertaining and somewhat sweet story about a loose group of young London slackers. The crew of drugged-out housemates is straight from central casting: the volatile foreign Lothario, the slumming hot rich girl, the total space cadet, the essentially decent smart guy, the essentially decent creative guy, and the enigmatic mousy girl who blossoms. These characters may live "alternative" lifestyles, but they've been seen in a thousand films and books. The plot is similarly familiar: when the two guys who are making acid in the attic realize the police are moments away from raiding the house, they grab everyone and head for the wilderness. Of course the police aren't the only people after them, there's also the drug thugs they've got the deal set up with... Leaving behind their joint smoke contaminated London house, the urbanites make for the magic mushroom hills of Wales, where fish out of water antics ensue. There, they meet up with a former housemate, who's shut himself up in an ancient cottage, trying to write a story about kamikaze pilots. It engages on a very superficial level, and is worth considering if you want a very light read that's rooted in pill-popping youth culture.

A high speed trip
A nostalgic look at friendship coupled with a high-speed thrash through more drugs than you'd care to have fall on your head, all mixed together with a look into the head of a young kamikaze pilot out to restart the second world war. The book bears comparison to the wonderful messed-up ness of Viktor Pelevin or a more thoughtful, intelligent, better written and madder version of Alex Garland's The Beach.
For those who want a squint into youth culture in Britain you could do a lot worse, for those who already know about youth culture in Britain, it's a damn good read.
Buy buy buy...