Angel City
First Published: 1994
Published By: Collins Crime
Angel Number: 5
Personal Favourite: 11
Quotable Quote: Can't stop, got a meet with a Vampire.
The Backstory
The early, 'caring' nineties, and Angel is forced to get a job to pay the rent, but he's desperate enough to take on any task with easy readies.
The work offered by the hyperactive Tigger is definitely iffy, but it pays for cat food. However, Angel is drawn, inexorably, into Tigger's homeless world of Lincoln's Inn Fields, shop doorways and dodgy dealings.
And then the monsters come out from the underbelly of this world, and Angel finds himself with no choice but to get involved in the revenge Tigger was planning on a definitely illegal activity.
The Webmaster's Take
It's the city I live in, the city of angels.
Speaking of music, I can't help thinking of Brian Protheroe's "Pinball" when I read or think of this book. There's even a pinball machine in there somewhere. But there's no girl called Jude. Anyway.
A slightly sober review on this book. It's fitting.
City figured quite low on my list for some time, in fact, when I got it (a battered old ex library book which whoever bought for about 70p and sold for over a tenner...hmm...) it was read once and not read again for a long time. The book stands out from all the rest, but as I sussed out the reasons why I wasn't liking it much - I warmed to it until it gradually started gaining a place and was taken out of the bottom of the cupboard.
The book is dark. Very dark. Most of the scenes take place at night, but even during the day time scenes you just know it is heaving it down with rain or just about to. It's not that there's no humour in there, there's plenty, but the background and the plot deal with stuff you really don't want to think about. But think about it you should.
There was a guy who used to hang about Richmond Upon Thames, his main haunt being Richmond Green, who was intentionally homeless, his only possessions being the clothes he stood up in and a weathered acoustic guitar. He was well known to the police and could have had a leg up from any homeless charity or warm hearted soul. He didn't want it though; he loved being homeless. He was so well known, that, when he died, he merited a column inch in the local Times. He maybe lived better than the rest in Richmond, who were constantly struggling with a house market that had shoe boxes needing a hefty mortgage.
The book explores the darker side of homelessness, those intentionally homeless and loving it, or stuck with the hand that life has dealt them, rather than the 'misunderstood teenagers' that the media like to talk about. Drug taking and homosexuality isn't fluffy enough; it doesn't provoke sympathy. And the unsung heroes that clean up the aftermath; student doctors, Shelter and in this particular story, Angel, although the reluctant warrior has to become involved after someone rearranges his smile.
All the same, there is comic relief in Ripley's observations of east end Wide Boys, what the homeless get up to in their spare time, and of course Dungeons and Dragons, which every teen who has been 'Left of Centre' (as Suzanne Vega would put it) has been involved in at some point or another. I abandoned it after about a year, having seen it for the utter pants it was (and it was staged in someone's living room, with no costumes or silly names) but maybe I should have taken Angel's cue and found opportunities to get a rise out of it when I could.
I have to say it - although City is not particularly high in my list, and setting aside stereotypes and the fact that this is fiction, it is still an essential addition to the collection and may get you thinking about what really does go on after midnight on the streets.
And don't walk round the guy selling The Big Issue. Buy one.
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