American Smoke: Journeys to the End of the Light

Iain Sinclair

Language: English

Publisher: Penguin

Published: Nov 7, 2013

Description:

In American Smoke, Iain Sinclair hits the road to America in the tracks of the Beats.


****On the trail of the American Beats, Iain Sinclair makes a delirious and perhaps ill-fated expedition in the footsteps of Malcolm Lowry, Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Charles Olson and Gary Snyder. It is a journey in search of literary ghosts behind mirages of volcanoes and the Old West. In which rumours vie with false memories and unreliable reports to steer our guide from one strange adventure into another. It is an odyssey in which the beginning offers no clues as to where it may end.

'A transatlantic odyssey . . . grippingly haunted' Observer

'A challenging, maddening, fascinating journey . . . enjoy Sinclair's poetic language and subtly warped sense of humour. Rich and engrossing' Metro

'Sit back and feel the invigorating pulse of beautifully crafted prose . . . wonderful' Daily Telegraph

'Iain Sinclair has gone from cult author to national treasure' Robert Macfarlane

Iain Sinclair is the author of Downriver (winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Encore Award); Landor's Tower; White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings; Lights Out for the Territory; Lud Heat; Rodinsky's Room (with Rachel Lichtenstein); Radon Daughters; London Orbital, Dining on Stones, Hackney, that Rose-Red Empire and Ghost Milk.

**

Review

His voice is still urgent. If we know what's good for us, we'll listen Financial Times Sinclair's is a prolix poetics, an amassing of noun-hives whose compacted wit would make the most lexically dexterous rapper envious Observer To overlook Sinclair is to ignore one of the most distinctive voices in Britain GQ One of the finest writers alive -- Alan Moore London's own poet laureate Time Out

About the Author

Iain Sinclair's books include London Orbital, Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire, Downriver (which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Encore Award) Ghost Milk and American Smoke. He lives in Hackney, East London.