Description
Twenty years ago, in a series of mysterious, incandescent writings, David Seabrook told of the places he knew best: the declining resort towns of the Kent coast. The pieces were no advert for the local tourist board. Here, the ghosts of murderers and mad artists crawl the streets. Septuagenarian rent boys recall the good old days and Carry On stars go to seed. Clandestine fascist networks emerge. And all the time, there is Seabrook himself - desperate perhaps, and in danger. Dark, strange and immediate, this is a classic work of sui generis British literature. There are devils here, and the reader will remember them.
A blistering, mysterious exploration of the Kent coast -- a dark, experimental, very British classic.
About the Author
David Seabrook was born in 1960 and spent most of his life in Kent, where he studied Proust at the University of Canterbury. A marked outsider, he drew inspiration from artists who operated outside prevailing literary fashion, those who persisted when nobody was listening. His writings ranged from tributes to unheralded authors to studies of tabloid crimes; were all committed to longhand, seldom found any publishing outlet, and are now considered lost. At the turn of the century, the longhand pages of All the Devils Are Here came to Granta's attention and the book was published in 2002. In 2009, Seabrook's body was discovered in his Canterbury flat. He had published only one further work, the true crime piece Jack of Jumps.
Reviews
David Seabrook, it is a pleasure to report, is the real thing * Sunday Times *
His book, the first to do justice to the transcendent weirdness of this boot of land that is not London, should be treasured. By living so long in the past, by digging and listening and making the phone-calls, Seabrook has hallucinated an alternate English history -- Iain Sinclair
[Psychogeography] doesn't begin to capture its intense interest, its uncanny spookiness, the way it ensnares you, turning your stomach, messing with your head... All the Devils Are Here demands to be reread, picked over, endlessly discussed... And yet to know it is somehow not to know anything at all -- Rachel Cooke * Observer *
The book's rediscovery will hopefully install it as an urtext for the hordes of drifters following in its slipstream... All the Devils are Here outshines most work of a similar ilk by being completely committed to its subject [...] it is an archaeological dig, an exorcism, an occultist reading of wrong-doings in Rochester, Chatham, Ramsgate, Deal and Margate -- Ben Myers * New Statesman *
[A] decidedly creepy and unsettling corpse-strewn journey through the seaside towns of Kent. A sort of literary beachcomber -- Lucy Scholes * BBC Culture *
Book Information
ISBN 9781783784332
Author David Seabrook
Format Paperback
Page Count 192
Imprint Granta Books
Publisher Granta Books
Weight(grams) 138g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 10mm
A blistering, mysterious exploration of the Kent coast -- a dark, experimental, very British classic.
About the Author
David Seabrook was born in 1960 and spent most of his life in Kent, where he studied Proust at the University of Canterbury. A marked outsider, he drew inspiration from artists who operated outside prevailing literary fashion, those who persisted when nobody was listening. His writings ranged from tributes to unheralded authors to studies of tabloid crimes; were all committed to longhand, seldom found any publishing outlet, and are now considered lost. At the turn of the century, the longhand pages of All the Devils Are Here came to Granta's attention and the book was published in 2002. In 2009, Seabrook's body was discovered in his Canterbury flat. He had published only one further work, the true crime piece Jack of Jumps.
Reviews
David Seabrook, it is a pleasure to report, is the real thing * Sunday Times *
His book, the first to do justice to the transcendent weirdness of this boot of land that is not London, should be treasured. By living so long in the past, by digging and listening and making the phone-calls, Seabrook has hallucinated an alternate English history -- Iain Sinclair
[Psychogeography] doesn't begin to capture its intense interest, its uncanny spookiness, the way it ensnares you, turning your stomach, messing with your head... All the Devils Are Here demands to be reread, picked over, endlessly discussed... And yet to know it is somehow not to know anything at all -- Rachel Cooke * Observer *
The book's rediscovery will hopefully install it as an urtext for the hordes of drifters following in its slipstream... All the Devils are Here outshines most work of a similar ilk by being completely committed to its subject [...] it is an archaeological dig, an exorcism, an occultist reading of wrong-doings in Rochester, Chatham, Ramsgate, Deal and Margate -- Ben Myers * New Statesman *
[A] decidedly creepy and unsettling corpse-strewn journey through the seaside towns of Kent. A sort of literary beachcomber -- Lucy Scholes * BBC Culture *
Book Information
ISBN 9781783784332
Author David Seabrook
Format Paperback
Page Count 192
Imprint Granta Books
Publisher Granta Books
Weight(grams) 138g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 10mm
