DURHAM LITERATURE FESTIVAL 2000

 

DAREN KING

Daren King left school in 1998 with only one GCSE in English and worked in computing for a few years. He went on to take an A level in English, and then to a creative writing course at Bath Spa University College, where he gained a BA in creative writing with English. Other than writing, he is into techno, jungle and house music - and travel when paid for by other people. Boxy an Star is his first book and he is now writing his second. He lives in Bath.

‘it is like this. When we was born we got nothin. No money. No pills. And not even no brain. When we was in the queue what was given em out. We werent even it. We was round the corner mucking about. That is why people keep satin we was born thru a sieve. Coz our dads an mums was doin pills an got rid of brain an made us give birth an we got born with no brain. That is what it is like. It was always rubbish. An it is only gettin the same’

When Abacus first published Boxy an Star last year they claimed that it would be the most original book of the year. The book received almost universal critical acclaim and it was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and called ‘linguistically ingenious’ by their arts editor. It reached the top 10 shortlist for the Booker Prize; a rare feat for a debut novelist.

Vivid, tender, funny and dangerous Boxy an Star is a love story about two teenagers who have nothing in their lives except each other, their pills and their transvestite dealer. And when the pills run out everything in their universe, even their own relationship, threatens to fall apart.

Boxy an Star is not just another drugs book. With virtually no references to dance music and no ‘obligatory drugs scene’, Daren King portrays a sometimes hilarious, sometimes nihilistic vision of a future ‘lost generation’; an underclass whose brains have been scrambled to such an extent that they don’t care what is in the ‘pill’ as long as it’s strong.

 

‘A total success: finely paced, wildly funny, deeply touching’

The Independent

‘The language King has developed for his novel is unsettlingly juvenile, evoking both the innocence of first love and the perils of love affairs conducted entirely through drugs like ecstasy. King takes up themes developed in other chemical generation novels….. namely that the nature of romance has changed in the 90s. Emotions are heightened’ passion is more immediate, and the comedown is more destructive’

Nicholas Blincoe, The Guardian

 

‘an exceptional writer – warm, modern, daring and oozing sweetness and beauty – and we desperately, urgently need more voices like his … it is the loudest and most expressive I’ve read in a long time’

Independent on Sunday

‘By turns funny, touching and vivid, this presents an original and human consideration of the ecosphere of this decade’

Attitude