TUTTI FRUTTI - Softcover

John Patrick Byrne

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0563205474 ISBN 13: 9780563205470

Publisher: BBC BOOKS, 1987

Synopsis

The transitional years, 1967 and 1968, and their tumultuous social, political, military and pop culture phenomena are embedded as background to the narrative unfoldment of the principal protagonist of Tutti Frutti. High school is over for Cody Emerson on the threshold of turning eighteen, singer/songwriter in a "garage" band of fellow schoolmates, desirous of creating for himself an individualised identity beginning to shape itself independent of his now conformist generation. The eternal question for an eighteen-year-old is how to discover the tools through which to effect ongoing transformation of his consciousness. Cody Emerson's awareness of possibilities to shift out of blind conformity, especially musically and politically, has already been broadened through associations and stimuli provided by family members. Literature, Art, especially Painting and Theatre, and later, Philosophy, coalesce with his musical aspirations, opening up creative avenues for him to explore, intellectually and physically. Being eighteen, he is inexperienced in romantic associations with women, how to effectively and fruitfully communicate and interact with them, accommodating their own aspirational desires in relation to his own. Concurrent with making popular records he embarks upon the beginnings of a theatrical/television career which enables him to find those pathways to greater understanding eluding his generation wholly caught up in the progressive moments of living through 1967 and 1968, their perspective conditioned by the traumas of the time, taken out of context of the ongoing sweep of history. Few among any generation free themselves sufficiently to universalise their lives, remaining time-bound to the perceptions derived from late-adolescence, the lesson illustrated in Tutti Frutti through the example of the Beat Generation and today's ongoing reverence for the Left, and, musically, The Beatles, commentary on these being prominent within the novel's narrative fabric.

About this title

About the Author

John Byrne was born in Paisley in 1940. He worked as a 'slab boy' at AFT Stoddard, the carpet manufacturers, before going to Glasgow School of Art. He became a full time painter in 1968 following his first London exhibition. His plays include Nova Scotia, Slab Boys, Cuttin' a Rug, Still Life, Writer's Cramp, Normal Service, Cara Coco and Colquhoun and Macbryde. For TV, he is best known for his BAFTA award-winning series Tutti Frutti (adapted for the stage by National Theatre of Scotland, UK Tour). He is a distinguished theatre designer and has designed productions for the Traverse Theatre, 7:84, Hampstead Theatre, the Bush Theatre and Scottish Opera.

Edition details

• Publisher: BBC BOOKS
• Publication date: 1987
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0563205474
• ISBN 13: 9780563205470
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 64