Speak For England

(Paperback)

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Description

Deep in the jungle, a reality TV star stumbles across a miniature civilisation of plane crash survivors preserving a pocket of 1950s England within the wilderness. A rollicking satire about the old, the new and the English. Brian Marley, a divorced Englishman, is alone in the vilest jungle on earth, about to die live on television. A contestant on Brit Pluck, Green Hell, Two Million, the ultimate reality TV show, Marley has managed to outlive his rivals and win enough money to change his life. Except that the TV crew has just been wiped out in a helicopter crash. With the crocodiles closing in, he has no option but to climb the vast cliff at his back. Inevitably, he falls... ...And awakes in a lost world that is remarkably like an Englishman's heaven. There's cricket and rugger, the Union Jack, plucky boys, pretty girls, a tough but fair headmaster - an entire miniature civilization preserved by the surviving passengers from Comet IV, which vanished in 1958. Firmly convinced that they were the first casualties of World War III, they have kept an idyllic, pre-sixties England alive. When Brian contacts the outside world, the Headmaster is outraged to find an embattled New Labour MP unchallenged by a hapless Tory Party. With 50s conviction, he sets about restoring the values of the Eagle to England.

Reviews

Amusing and intelligent throughout...The tone of the narrative is pitch-perfect * Observer *
A comic novelist of considerable stature...An assured, clever, raffishly inventive work * Guardian *
Deliciously entertaining * Independent on Sunday *
The writing is so sharp and waspish that comparisons with Evelyn Waugh are not misplaced * Sunday Telegraph *
Consistently inventive and entertaining * Daily Mail *

Author Bio

James Hawes is the author of six novels, including White Powder, Green Light and My Little Armalite. He lives in Cardiff.