ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS

by Colin MacInnes ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 14, 1959

A brief, excellent, crowded and rather inconclusive (because no conclusion is yet in sight) excursion among British teenagers, the Absolute Beginners, who are neither Teddy boys nor yet members of the potentially ""conscript"" (browbeaten adult) youth--this book is both a declaration of independence, and a gentle, angry re-affirmation of values. Its nameless young hero, who speaks rather like a Salinger adolescent grafted onto Mad magazine and the beat generation, survives four summer months in teen-age London with grace, dignity and compassion. This in spite of the fact that he makes a living taking photographs (often pornographic) and numbers among his friends, who are mostly under twenty too, dope addicts, fags, procurers and assorted frayed T.V. personalities. His mother runs a boarding house for her lovers; his seventeen year old true love has a penchant for ""Spades"" (MacInnes' earlier book- City of Spades), and winds up marrying a homosexual for money but comes back to him during the race riots in London.... For all the surface ugliness of its people and jargon, this book, existing in a very narrow time hedged with perils, is full of awareness, tenderness, and a morality based on a hopeless love for other people. It is alive from beginning to end.

Pub Date: March 14, 1959

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Macmillan

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1959

Categories: FICTION