Table of Content
First off, I received this novel for free in exchange for an honest review. Second, I'm totally NOT the intended audience for this book. This book was,at times, difficult to read the content.
Jake Arnott was born in 1961, and lives in London. He is the author of THE LONG FIRM, published by Sceptre in 1999 and subsequently made into an acclaimed BBC TV series. His second novel, HE KILLS COPPERS, was also made into a series by Channel 4. He has since published the novels TRUECRIME, JOHNNY COME HOME, THE DEVIL'S PAINTBRUSH and THE HOUSE OF RUMOUR. I found myself wondering more about what went before it and what would come after, than engaging with the plot we were presented with ... Tony Breeden is an author, speaker, and artist from West Virginia.
Open Library
As always, Arnott's dialogue and characterisation are convincing but my overall feeling was thank god for a decade gone by. The plot itself was pretty tread bare and not in anyway engrossing. But they are also fully formed characters in their own right, who without exception Arnott manages to imbue with empathy and complexity. I found myself thoroughly drawn into their world, living their highs and lows with them, as they hurtle towards an uncertain and exciting climax. Except nothing goes according to plan for Pearson. Sweet Thing is already busy being at the beckoned call of an aging rock star, Johnny Chrome, to be bothered with Pearson.
To ask other readers questions aboutWhy Johnny Can't Come Home,please sign up. Gosch self-published a book in 2000 titled Why Johnny Can't Come Home. The book presents her understanding of what her son went through, based on the original research of various private investigators and her son's visit. The ending was not believable or thought through. Graphic descriptions of gay, lesbian and het sex. Glam rock, rentboys, the Angry Brigade, Gay and Women's Lib, London, squatting, art and fragments of Bowie's lyrics hidden like Easter eggs in the paragraphs.
The Song Index of the Enoch Pratt Free Library
The main character is a complex and evolving, sort of dark hero that evokes a sense of sympathy and identification in the reader. New characters are introduced in a way that keeps the story moving, without being confusing. This was a skillfully written story, revealing just enough to keep you interested. It would have been five stars, but the ending was weak and the POVs shifted inconsistently without warning.
He knows that Titan was behind it all and thought it best to disappear. What follows is action adventure with X-Men like characters- Super humans with abilities beyond wildest imagination fighting each other and it is just the beginning of the conspiracy. The author explores the concepts of the unmapped areas of the human brain/mind. What if we could use other areas of the 90% or so of our minds? Is survival of the fittest justifiable amongst humans? These last two questions are examined in the light of solid Biblical teachings which are an integral part of the story , giving us a quantifiable yardstick to measure them against.
Genres
But the narrative deals with a gay couple involved in radical politics as well as a woman who is in that world as well as getting involved with a glam-struck rent boy, who is basically supported by the Gary Glitter character. London, 1972, and a charismatic anarchist called O'Connell dies of an overdose, leaving his artist boyfriend, Pearson, and fellow activist Nina in shock. It also leaves a spar room in their squat, so Pearson moves in Sweet Thing, a streetwise yet vulnerable young boy he initially picks up but then tries to help. Before I get into this review, I have a few things to mention.
A fresh look at the 70s that tries to capture the ideals that stirred that period and the previous decade, starting to break with the current mentality and conventions and opening the way in good and bad to a new age. Beautiful prose whose rhythm reflects the fluid unfolding of the events and sustains the currents of thoughts and feelings of the protagonists. I’m not particularly moralistic about sex in books but the sex in this seems gratuitous and served no real purpose. I get the feeling that Arnott’s publishers noticed he decline in sales since the Long Firm and told him to ‘spice things up and bit’.
Community Reviews
Johnny Come Home is sent on the Glam era of the 70’s and three main characters a young male prostitute , a feminist lesbian and a gay art student . The story also includes am aging pop star trying to recapture his former glory by re-launching himself as a glam rock start and a copper engaged in countering the counter culture movement. When I first received this book to review I was unsure whether I wanted to read it as I was a bit put off by its science-fiction genre. However, from the first few pages I was drawn into Johnny's fast paced, dark and intriguing story.
Instead, he weaves both the questions and possible responses throughout the narrative as part of the story and the characters’ reactions, rather than hammering out obvious opinions through exposition. I would have given this book five stars, however the one complaint I had was that a lot of the story was told in a more narrative fashion, instead of allowing me to experience the events of the story for myself. There were a lot of overly descriptive passages that occasionally caused me to lose interest. But overall this is a well-told story, and I recommend it as a curious diversion from the ordinary superhero, comic book genre. This is a very action-packed adventure, with comic book style characters who have super-powers.
Then the double whammy of Sweet Thing starting a relationship with Pearson's female -and supposedly- lesbian housemate, Nina, really knocks him. Dr. Sproul’s radio program, Renewing Your Mind, is still broadcast daily on hundreds of radio stations around the world and can also be heard online. Dr. Sproul produced hundreds of lecture series and recorded numerous video series on subjects such as the history of philosophy, theology, Bible study, apologetics, and Christian living. To ask other readers questions aboutJohnny Come Home,please sign up. Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.
My heart breaks for the victims and their family and friends. If he is indeed still out there and alive, I hope he's well. I do recommend this book if true crime interests you, if you have previously heard about or looked into Johnny's case and also if you can handle the sensitive material.
This book was not my typical read but I was pleasantly surprised and found myself enthralled from the beginning. Arnott chronicles this age far too well for his years, for something he witnessed only through the eyes of a school boy. I was unfamiliar with him before, but he is now on my radar for the future. Though, I would be far more interested in a less tragic novel, but as he makes succinctly clear, this was a tragic time and those who lived there could do nothing less than inherit the tragedy. Amazingly, Nina, the only fleshed out female character, does indeed seem to conspire to finally fall into herself through sex, only she instantly sublimates her pleasure for a cause, a cause she does not even wholly support.
The next book by him that I read was was a total disappointment, and this was no better - a ridiculous premise and flat, one-dimensional characters. If you read anything by Jake Arnott, make it The Long Firm. Two-and-a-half stars on the literary merits, rounded up because Sproul's life work and more than a little autobiography runs through the pages. The prose often purples, the vocabulary frequently wears a tie to Wal-Mart, the plot points are too convenient, but the heartbeat of everything is a man whose life is changed by the gospel. When a theologian writes a novel that unashamedly moralizes and preaches, the fact that it isn't bad is a triumph. No community reviews have been submitted for this work.
In fact, he really doesn’t know that much about his friend, Johnny, either. A town gripped in conspiracy and tyranny and now teenagers starting to understand they have superpowers accelerated by the towns governing company. As another pointed out, this book had great need for better proofing and editing, but that is not the point of a book like this.
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