DEFIANT POSE BY STEWART HOME. Published by Peter Owen, London 1991. ISBN 0-7206-0828-7. Hardback.
Front dust jacket flap blurb:
Defiant Pose is a story straight from today's headlines. it hero, or anti-hero, Terry Blake, is a contemporary Faust whose thirst for knowledge leads to brutality, sexual excess and ultimately self-destruction. Nevertheless nothing can stop the chain of events which Terry's journey through the political fringes of society has set in motion. As Terry lies stricken, anarchist insurgents take to the streets and London explodes in an orgy of violence.
Stewart Home's new novel is a heady brew of genre fiction and political gymnastics, fast, funny and ironic in the telling.
Back cover blurb:
STEWART HOME was born in South London in 1962 but now lives in the East End. He is the author of The Assault on Culture: Utopian Currents from Lettrisme to Class War (1988) as well as many articles which have appeared in both the mainstream and underground press. He was organsier of the International Festivals of Plagiarism and has given lectures on the reactionary nature of art. His previous novel, Pure Mania, was published in 1989.
Front cover design illustration by Thomi Wroblewski
Back cover photograph by David Tiffen
This title is out of print in English, it may become available again in a print on demand version (check the 'BUY' link at the top of this page to see if it is available now).
Finnish translation Like, Helsinki 1995.
German translation as Stellungskrieg, Nautilus, Hamburg 1995. (ISBN: 3-89401-248-X)
TRIVIA
Publisher Peter Owen wanted to push Stewart Home as one of a number of new young writers they'd signed, alongside the likes of Fiona Pitt-Keithly and Jeremy Reed (both about a decade older than Home and with very different 'aesthetics'). However, there was a smart young publicist called Gary Pulsifer (who now fronts his own independent publishing operation) working at Peter Owen at the time who'd pushed for Home to be signed and wanted to promote him on a William Burroughs underground tip; hence the deployment of Thomi Wroblewski on the front cover, since this was an illustrator who had already worked on Burroughs books and thus provided a subliminal link between the two writers.
Defiant Pose was written in 1989 but by the time it was published in 1991, Home was on a three year Art Strike and refusing to write new books or promote his existing ones. When he received media requests, he sent his friends along to do his interviews for him. Fellow novelist Simon Strong (A256 Multiplex Bomb Outrage etc.) proved particularly adept at passing himself off as Home.
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