Waking Up in Toytown. John Burnside

By John Burnside

Book Overview

In the early 80s, after a decade of drug abuse and borderline mental illness, John Burnside resolved to escape his addictive personality and find calm in a 'Surbiton of the mind'. But the suburbs are not quite as normal as he had imagined and, as he relapses into chaos, he encounters a homicidal office worker who is obsessed with Alfred Hitchcock and Petula Clark, an old lover, with whom he reprises a troubled, masochistic relationship and, finally, the seemingly flesh-and-blood embodiemnts of all his private phantoms.

The sequel to his haunting, celebrated account of a troubled childhood, Waking Up in Toytown is unsettling, touching, oddly romantic and unflinchingly honest.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0099507838
• ISBN13: 9780099507833
• Release Date: January 2011
• Publisher: Vintage Books USA
• Length: 262 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.1" x 7.8"