Breakfast in Babylon

"The hallucinatory prose of Martin's first novel painfully evokes the milieu of the world's disaffected youth." - Library Journal

Isolt is down but not out in Paris. She's a sharp-tongued Irish drifter with a fierce instinct for survival who falls into a darkly comic relationship with Christopher, the "hoodoo man." He's a Puerto Rican anarchist and wheeler-dealer from Detroit who fuels his messianic delusions with Iggy Pop songs and smack. From Dublin to Paris, New York to New Orleans, the two run small-time scams, deal dope, and squat among an international underclass of vagabonds and punk-junkies. Begging is their way of life, until Isolt determines a desperate escape. Written with razor-sharp humor and raw storytelling verve, Breakfast in Babylon explores the stark world of a rootless generation - a world of beggars who choose and beggars who have no choice.

 

Reviews

"Amid all the very real violence and pain comes a spectacular sedative of language, humor, and hope."

- Column McCann, author of SONGDOGS

"The hallucinatory prose of Martin's first novel painfully evokes the milieu of the world's disaffected youth. [...] Martin knows her territory: the realistic depiction of her band of losers is matched by the humanity that imbues them, and the brutality of her prose is leavened with self-deprecating humor. Although this novel is sure to offend many, it is highly recommended wherever good prose and honest fiction are appreciated."

- Library Journal

"I have come back to this book time and time again, the voice is so clear and the range of characters so cleverly drawn and so real as to be breathtaking. [...] It is an underground classic and will be remembered as one of the great books this century. I've no doubt it is a book I will pick up thought my life just to revel in the sheer poetry of entanglement, despair, and weird salvation."

- Amazon Reviews

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