Brass

by Helen Walsh

Book Overview

Disillusioned with academic life, 19-year-old Millie seeks escape in the underbelly of Liverpool's Cathedral area, where an encounter with a world-weary prostitute turns into a nocturnal odyssey of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1841954845
• ISBN13: 9781841954844
• Release Date: October 2004
• Publisher: Canongate Us
• Length: 296 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.4" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

One of the best books I've read in a while

If you are easily offended, this book is not for you. But if you are a fan of sexually-charged realist literature--from Bukowski to Henry Miller to Anais Nin--you might enjoy "Brass." The setting is Liverpool, England. The location is unusual, but at the very least, it shows that people in Liverpool don't just talk about the Beatles having got their start there. As with many Americans, they are leading aimless, anxious lives. Liverpool is described as dangerous, but also exciting. Millie, the protagonist, lives one never ending all-nighter, filled with boozing, whoring, and suicidal hangovers. As far as depictions of English nightlife go, "Brass" has the feel of the "Madchester" days of plentiful drugs and intense partying. Millie is a young college girl who is smart, but doing badly in school, independent but also self-destructive. Her lifestyle, however, is not depicted in a world free of consequences. Her hard living takes a physical as well as pyschological toll. She is about to crack up if she doesn't find her way. At one point, Walsh has a virtuoso scene where Millie is rummaging through her home to find a cigarette so that she can get relief from a feeling that she'll never come down from the drugs she took. A sociologist might say that she is one of the victims of post-feminist society: Millie seems incapable of a normal seuxal relationship. Others would simply say that she's messed up. The book is loaded with sex, drinking, and drug-taking. But I didn't find it a downer or immoral. It's about what many young people go through: intense bouts of anxiety that they only feel drinking, drugs, and sex can combat. In an age of so much gutless writing, Walsh does what many writers are too scared to do: she takes big risks. She went for broke her first time out. But unlike many other risky authors, she has the technical skill and intellectual gifts to make her book literature and not just entertainment. One is not likely to come away with a so-so reaction to her book. Judging from the reviews posted here, they will love it or hate it. This is Walsh's first book, and it is amazing. Honest, fast-paced, and compelling.

Disturbing, graphic, and sexually depraved

This is a striking book; it's very disturbing, erotic, depraved, and dark. Millie's story is startling, sexually depraved, frenetic, and self destructive. Once her mother leaves her father and her to fend for themselves, it all changes dramatically for her. She shuts down and lives in her thoughts, hating everything and everyone. She loses herself and runs away from reality every chance she gets and she cannot stop herself, she just cannot stop. She learns that she is gay when she finds a pornographic magazine on her best buddy's room, she checks the pictures of a couple of women together and it changes everything for her forever. She needs depravity to get turned on and she looks for filthy corners and hookers, she looks for women perched on window sills doing nothing, just waiting for the men that are used to paying for sex; they are waiting to sell their bodies and their souls, and Millie loves it, she loves the depravity of it all and craves for it as much as she craves for cocaine, ecstasy and the love of Jamie, her best buddy. This is a story of a girl who grows up too fast once her mother is gone and who has no limits set to her, she can do as she pleases, she can stay the night wherever she wants and she is throwing away her chance at a career. She is blowing everything away. Raw, a story of queer predilections, bad choices, and the descent into a life of hedonism, loneliness, and dark days with darker nights; I can only recommend it to those who like ruthless books, crude awakenings and profound stories, there is nothing shallow or superficial about this book and I liked it for that, it's real, unpleasant, and unashamed.

A real downer

When I started to read this it had a certain optimism. The heroine, nineteen year old Millie, who is from a well educated millieu, is at university but doesn't care much for her studies. Her reaction to the splitting up of her parents has obviously tipped her into chaos and she reacts to this by befriending a gang of working class Liverpudlean lads and their families. She seeks a warmth that is lacking in her own family. And so far, this is commendable, but unfortunately this does not solve any of her problems. Apart from a pretty serious coke and E habit she indulges in what can only be described as seriously deranged sexual practices and is constantly compelled to sleep with prostitutes and on one occasion to stay at a prostitute's house in order to insert bottles into various orifices. After a while of such hard core events you'd think the reader would become numb, but no. I felt more and more sick, and this is certainly credit to the author, but I just felt so sorry for Millie, I really did, and I just felt there wasn't much hope for her. Let me say, Walsh is a brilliant writer, her descriptions are so real they make you totally get under Millie's skin, but by the same token, the hyper-reality of her style swiftly made me nauseous. This is like A Clockwork Orange but far more real and while I have the feeling it will become some kind of literary classic, I'm afraid that all in all it was too rich for my stomach.

already waiting for the sequel

I usually read books in about two days..this one I savored for a week. Each line is dramatic, each description is thought out..Helen makes you feel as though you are reading her thoughts. Not for the faint at heart! great book, impressive...I am a fan!

Perverse, Raw and Entertaining

Having received this book for Christmas, I was immediately intrigued by the back cover description and I read this book voraciously until I was finished. It is a brilliant effort by Walsh, full of interesting dialogue, English slang and perverse sexual descriptions. Being American I wasn't used to all of the working class slang but it can be deciphered on context and it is written phonetically. It's like Trainspotting in its raw and visceral feel. Thoroughly entertaining and a little autobiographical I can assume by the acknowledgements. It is totally a guilty pleasure with some of Milli's explicit dialogue and perverse desires. This is not for the prudish at heart. Recommended for all of the sexually and chemically adventurous... Looking forward to Walsh's next effort!