A Start in Life

by Alan Sillitoe

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0684125374
• ISBN13: 9780684125374
• Release Date: January 1970
• Publisher: Scribner Book Company
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Bursting with life.

First time I took a hold of that book I was 13. "Start In Life" seemed to be a timely reading. I was a bookish teenager looking for role models and Mike Cullen turned to be a major find. The flamboyant clerk then strip-club bouncer then mafia boss chaffeur then crazy writer's secretary then gold smuggler then convict then landlord is a fascinating figure. Mike Cullen flirts with danger, takes to bed as many ladies as he can manage, tries to make a quick pound in every way possible, falls in love, makes friends, engages in philosophical conversations and fistfights - he is bursting with life and certainly is not afraid of living.Since then that jaunty working class hero was always on my mind, urging me not to be a sissy and add an extra spice to life. My bookish side was captured by Thornton Wilder's Theophil Nort but every time I was in for a trick or two it was Mike Cullen stirring in me.Now I am 33 and these two decades were not as eventful as I hoped - but is that not the case with all of us? Anyway, when the gloom and depression lurk nearby I open that book, read, smile and hope for a new start.