The Back of the Book

'To the pictures! To the warm embrace of Mother cinema. Where peanut shells are spread before your feet, and the ice-cream cometh!'

Mark, the cynical intellectual, who seeks sensuality in the body of an ex-novice and finds spirituality; Clare, his girlfriend, who loses faitha nd discovers passion; Father Kipling, the scandalized priest; Harry, the sexually frustrated Teddy boy - just some among the crowd who make their Saturday-night pilgrimage to the peeling suburban Mecca of the Palladium, Brickley, and who toucha nd shape each other's destinies.

In his astutely observed first novel, David Lodge ushers in a vivid cast of characters, who play out the harsh and sometimes humorous realities of city life against a flickering backcloth of celluloid fantasies.

'Sharp and real. This is an individual first novel' Kingsley Amis in the Observer

'An excellent first novel ... He has a wonderful eye for the tawdriness of our commercial world' The Times

With a new introduction by the author.

Released on Monday, August 02, 2004 at Eastwood Recreation Centre in Glasgow, Scotland United Kingdom.

Will be left in the spectator's gallery at about 2.30pm.