Home Boy - Hardcover

Seth Morgan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0701136642 ISBN 13: 9780701136642

Publisher: Chatto & Windus, 1990

Synopsis

"Mr. Morgan mocks the limits of language to create an unnerving and uterrly persuasive rendition of hell, one that affirms him as an important new novelist."- The New York Times Book ReviewHomeboy , Seth Morgan's stunning novel, is a gritty, ribald, and frenetically lyrical odyssey through the Strip of San Francisco - a netherworld of whores, pimps, dealers and junkies - to the hell of Coldwater Penitentiary. After a high-priced hooker is killed and one of the world's biggest diamonds is stolen, Joe Speaker, a strip-joint barker and dope addict, stumbles onto the missing jewel, is hunted down and put away for murder. In prison, he finds that his troubles are just beginning."Hail the conquering literary hero!... Homeboy , a big beast of a novel with a beating and evolving human heart at its center...is full of the reality of human suffering."- Los Angeles Times Book Review"Seth Morgan makes the ugly streets of San Francisco's Tenderloin...into mythical characters and places, much larger than life and highly colored."- Washington Post Book World

About this title

About the Author

Seth Morgan (1949–1990) was an American novelist whose sole published title, Homeboy, received much critical acclaim. Morgan drew from his own experiences with San Francisco drug culture and prison in order to write what the New York Times called “an unnerving and utterly persuasive rendition of hell.”

As a young boy, Morgan attended many elite private schools, including St. Bernard’s School in New York and the American School in Switzerland. He also briefly attended the University of California, Berkeley, before dropping out and moving in with singer Janis Joplin. They became engaged shortly before she died. At the time of his own death in a motorcycle accident, Morgan was under contract for a second novel, set in New Orleans and titled Mambo Mephiste.

From Library Journal

When Joe Speaker, barker for a San Francisco strip joint, pulls off a caper inadvertently involving a precious diamond necklace, he incurs the wrath of porno king Baby Jewels and the interest of Detective Tarzon. Joe is sent to prison, where he breaks a drug habit and survives by his wits. Meanwhile, on the outside, Baby Jewels is maneuvering; Joe's girl friend is shacked up and pregnant; and various people are plotting, acting, and reacting. There is a dazzling vitality to this first novel. The language is raw; the characters are fresh and outrageous; the style is wicked and impudent. And in the dramatization of good versus evil (and the difficulty of sometimes telling the difference), the author succeeds in providing substance. Though not for readers looking for a standard thriller, this offbeat novel is outstanding and certain to be talked about. (Note: The title refers to prison slang for buddy. )-- Robert E. Donahugh, formerly with Youngstown & Mahoning Cty. P.L., Ohio
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Chatto & Windus
• Publication date: 1990
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0701136642
• ISBN 13: 9780701136642
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 390