Sugar and Rum

Unable to work on his novel about Liverpool's slave trade, Benson is teaching creative writing and wandering the city. The pupils who bring him their fantasies are a sad, dispossessed group with varying degrees of literary talent. Caught up in a series of bizarre events, Benson nevertheless finds his own imagination sparked by an encounter with two old army colleagues: Thompson, down-and-out and homeless; and Slater, a fabulously wealthy entrepreneur. In trying to heal old wounds, Benson unleashes a plan that just may blow up in his face. "There is a violent resolution to this obsessive and provocative novel that examines the abscesses and abysses beneath the violence of urban life and offers a quixotic personal answer." The Times London] "Fine descriptive writing and spirited humanity." The Guardian Published for the first time in the United States Booker Prize-winning author of Sacred Hunger"

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 05/17/1999
ISBN: 9780393318906
Pages: 247
Weight: 0.50lbs
Size: 8.25h x 5.46w x 0.61d

Review Citations: Publishers Weekly 04/05/1999 pg. 222
Kirkus Reviews 04/01/1999 pg. 481
Library Journal 05/15/1999 pg. 129
New York Times 07/04/1999 pg. 10
New York Times 12/05/1999 pg. 78