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Twelve Bar Blues

Patrick Neate

Patrick Neate's second novel, Twelve Bar Blues, is a bouncy, ebullient book, "populated" (as one of its cast reflects midway through), "by absurd characters, dead ends and half truths" that tumbles "toward a punch-line that would seem inevitable with hindsight". It positively brims with outlandish, hilarious and moving (if occasionally hokey) tales. Literally "every name's got a story" and by jingo Neate delights in spinning each part of his yarn. Roaming through the black slums and early jazz joints of the Louisiana bayou to Africa, London, New York, Chicago and New Orleans at the end of the 20th century, his vista is extraordinary. There's Tongo Kalulu, the chief of the Zimindo, a proud African tribe, who, confused by his wife and enraptured by an attractive female American archaeologist, seeks the advice of Musa, his sex-obsessed witch doctor. There's Sylvia di Napoli, a "coffee-coloured" retired London prostitute, who has travelled to America in the hope of discovering her real father¹s identity. Also along for the ride is Jim Tulloch, a scruffy, big-hearted young Englishman half her age. Gluing these seemingly disparate elements together is the tragic love story of Fortis James "Lick" Holden, a long forgotten Louisiana jazzman who allegedly taught Louis "Dipper" Armstrong the "meanin' of the word hot" and Sylvie Black, his prostitute "sister (who wasn't no blood relation)". Chock full of jazz, poverty, sex and death, this enjoyable novel jives to a note-perfect if predictable ending, dispensing intelligent critiques of racism and sexism along the way. --Travis Elborough
City of Tiny Lights

Patrick Neate
The London Pigeon Wars

Patrick Neate
City of Tiny Lights

Patrick Neate
Musungu Jim and the Great Chief Tuloko

Patrick Neate

The close resemblance of Patrick Neate's fictitious state of "Zambawi" to contemporary Zimbabwe, makes Musungu Jim and Great Chief Tuloko a tall but politically perceptive tale in which Neate takes the reader on a humorous tour of the downfall of a corrupt neo-colonial government.
Weaving from presidential palace to rural homestead, and from intercontinental hotel to red light district, this is a splendid farce, full of pathos and biting humour, reminiscent of Tom Sharpe. A clear sense of each character's humanity prevails as Neate entwines the destinies of a young English teacher whose naiveté saves him as he finds himself centre-stage in a growing rebellion, a herb-smoking witchdoctor who exercises mystical powers with uncanny skill, presidents down on their luck whose attempts to exercise any power are increasingly futile, the blessed-into-boredom presidential offspring who slowly learn to control their own destiny, and a disenchanted soldier who wishes he had stayed a poet. Storytelling is the framework for this tale, as Neate constructs whole oral histories, and local myths through which the characters come to find themselves. With frequent reference to Latin maxims, and "Zamba" proverbs, ancestral powers are invoked to unfold the rich tapestry of "Zamba" legend. The "Zamba" language and proverbs are cleverly close to, but not quite identifiable as Shona and Swahili, giving the whole farce an extraordinary credibility and life. --Oliver Phillips
Where You're at: Notes from the Frontline of a Hip Hop Planet

Patrick Neate
City of Tiny Lights

Patrick Neate
Where You're At: Notes from the Frontline of a Hip-Hop Planet

Patrick Neate
Twelve Bar Blues

Patrick Neate

Patrick Neate's second novel, Twelve Bar Blues, is a bouncy, ebullient book, "populated" (as one of its cast reflects midway through), "by absurd characters, dead ends and half truths" that tumbles "toward a punch-line that would seem inevitable with hindsight". It positively brims with outlandish, hilarious and moving (if occasionally hokey) tales. Literally "every name's got a story" and by jingo Neate delights in spinning each part of his yarn. Roaming through the black slums and early jazz joints of the Louisiana bayou to Africa, London, New York, Chicago and New Orleans at the end of the 20th century, his vista is extraordinary. There's Tongo Kalulu, the chief of the Zimindo, a proud African tribe, who, confused by his wife and enraptured by an attractive female American archaeologist, seeks the advice of Musa, his sex-obsessed witch doctor. There's Sylvia di Napoli, a "coffee-coloured" retired London prostitute, who has travelled to America in the hope of discovering her real father¹s identity. Also along for the ride is Jim Tulloch, a scruffy, big-hearted young Englishman half her age. Gluing these seemingly disparate elements together is the tragic love story of Fortis James "Lick" Holden, a long forgotten Louisiana jazzman who allegedly taught Louis "Dipper" Armstrong the "meanin' of the word hot" and Sylvie Black, his prostitute "sister (who wasn't no blood relation)". Chock full of jazz, poverty, sex and death, this enjoyable novel jives to a note-perfect if predictable ending, dispensing intelligent critiques of racism and sexism along the way. --Travis Elborough
Twelve Bar Blues

Patrick Neate

Patrick Neate's second novel, Twelve Bar Blues, is a bouncy, ebullient book, "populated" (as one of its cast reflects midway through), "by absurd characters, dead ends and half truths" that tumbles "toward a punch-line that would seem inevitable with hindsight". It positively brims with outlandish, hilarious and moving (if occasionally hokey) tales. Literally "every name's got a story" and by jingo Neate delights in spinning each part of his yarn. Roaming through the black slums and early jazz joints of the Louisiana bayou to Africa, London, New York, Chicago and New Orleans at the end of the 20th century, his vista is extraordinary. There's Tongo Kalulu, the chief of the Zimindo, a proud African tribe, who, confused by his wife and enraptured by an attractive female American archaeologist, seeks the advice of Musa, his sex-obsessed witch doctor. There's Sylvia di Napoli, a "coffee-coloured" retired London prostitute, who has travelled to America in the hope of discovering her real father¹s identity. Also along for the ride is Jim Tulloch, a scruffy, big-hearted young Englishman half her age. Gluing these seemingly disparate elements together is the tragic love story of Fortis James "Lick" Holden, a long forgotten Louisiana jazzman who allegedly taught Louis "Dipper" Armstrong the "meanin' of the word hot" and Sylvie Black, his prostitute "sister (who wasn't no blood relation)". Chock full of jazz, poverty, sex and death, this enjoyable novel jives to a note-perfect if predictable ending, dispensing intelligent critiques of racism and sexism along the way. --Travis Elborough
Musungu Jim and the Great Chief Tuloko

Patrick Neate

The close resemblance of Patrick Neate's fictitious state of "Zambawi" to contemporary Zimbabwe, makes Musungu Jim and Great Chief Tuloko a tall but politically perceptive tale in which Neate takes the reader on a humorous tour of the downfall of a corrupt neo-colonial government.
Weaving from presidential palace to rural homestead, and from intercontinental hotel to red light district, this is a splendid farce, full of pathos and biting humour, reminiscent of Tom Sharpe. A clear sense of each character's humanity prevails as Neate entwines the destinies of a young English teacher whose naiveté saves him as he finds himself centre-stage in a growing rebellion, a herb-smoking witchdoctor who exercises mystical powers with uncanny skill, presidents down on their luck whose attempts to exercise any power are increasingly futile, the blessed-into-boredom presidential offspring who slowly learn to control their own destiny, and a disenchanted soldier who wishes he had stayed a poet. Storytelling is the framework for this tale, as Neate constructs whole oral histories, and local myths through which the characters come to find themselves. With frequent reference to Latin maxims, and "Zamba" proverbs, ancestral powers are invoked to unfold the rich tapestry of "Zamba" legend. The "Zamba" language and proverbs are cleverly close to, but not quite identifiable as Shona and Swahili, giving the whole farce an extraordinary credibility and life. --Oliver Phillips
City of Tiny Lights

Patrick Neate
The London Pigeon Wars

Patrick Neate
The London Pigeon Wars

Patrick Neate
Twelve Bar Blues

Patrick Neate

Patrick Neate's second novel, Twelve Bar Blues, is a bouncy, ebullient book, "populated" (as one of its cast reflects midway through), "by absurd characters, dead ends and half truths" that tumbles "toward a punch-line that would seem inevitable with hindsight". It positively brims with outlandish, hilarious and moving (if occasionally hokey) tales. Literally "every name's got a story" and by jingo Neate delights in spinning each part of his yarn. Roaming through the black slums and early jazz joints of the Louisiana bayou to Africa, London, New York, Chicago and New Orleans at the end of the 20th century, his vista is extraordinary. There's Tongo Kalulu, the chief of the Zimindo, a proud African tribe, who, confused by his wife and enraptured by an attractive female American archaeologist, seeks the advice of Musa, his sex-obsessed witch doctor. There's Sylvia di Napoli, a "coffee-coloured" retired London prostitute, who has travelled to America in the hope of discovering her real father¹s identity. Also along for the ride is Jim Tulloch, a scruffy, big-hearted young Englishman half her age. Gluing these seemingly disparate elements together is the tragic love story of Fortis James "Lick" Holden, a long forgotten Louisiana jazzman who allegedly taught Louis "Dipper" Armstrong the "meanin' of the word hot" and Sylvie Black, his prostitute "sister (who wasn't no blood relation)". Chock full of jazz, poverty, sex and death, this enjoyable novel jives to a note-perfect if predictable ending, dispensing intelligent critiques of racism and sexism along the way. --Travis Elborough