{"title":"Books by Susan Compo","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"life-after-death","title":"Life After Death","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eLife After Death\u003c\/em\u003e is a deep dive into the subcultures of Los Angeles and London in the 1980s as glam turned to punk and goth. Susan Compo captures the lives of aspiring musicians, scenesters, and obsessive fans-lives in which reality is a constant threat to cherished illusions, and death, while never far away, is sometimes not the end of the story.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57510193365365,"sku":"9781953835048","price":13.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781953835048.jpg?v=1787130526"},{"product_id":"pretty-things","title":"Pretty Things","description":"Susan Compo's narrative voice-sharp-tongued and allusive-has earned her comparisons to those great satirists of the pre-war demimonde, Dorothy Parker and Dawn Powell, and her characters display a similarly irresistible blend of smart-ass wit, despair, and whistling-in-the-dark bravado. Following two highly praised story collections, Compo's debut novel, first published in 2001, offers a satirical and very funny take on LA's celebrity culture industry. Talent agent Giselle Entwistle has her hands full juggling her oddball roster of clients. There's Adon, struggling to make the transition from teen idol to mature star with the aid of a goatee; and would-be rock impresario Hedda Hophead, 'aggressive as junk mail and just as relentless.' There's country singer Len Tingle, whose career has as many ups and downs as his love affair with Giselle; and Tupperware demonstrator Troy Harder, 'a living legend in food storage,' who Giselle fears might want to plastic-wrap her. Not to mention child prodigy belter Frances Culligan, who suddenly goes missing. And then there's Pandra, whose haunting memoir of growing up in suburban Orange County and coming of age back in '70s glitter-era Los Angeles (platform boots, Rodney's English Disco) forms a book within this book. Giselle hopes to get Pandra's true story published though it does bring up the matter of a possible murder...","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57510194970997,"sku":"9781953835130","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781953835130.jpg?v=1787130528"},{"product_id":"malingering","title":"Malingering","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAs the Goth subculture that flourished in the 1980s and '90s experiences a long overdue resurgence of interest, the time is definitely ripe to rediscover Susan Compo's short stories, hailed at the time as \"like Raymond Carver through Goth-coloured glasses\" (\u003cem\u003eSunday Times\u003c\/em\u003e).\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs participant and observer, Compo was immersed in the music and fashion scenes in London and Los Angeles during those years, and writes about them with wit and compassion but also brutal honesty, capturing in her fiction the exhilaration and the despair of the times, the desires and foibles of its protagonists.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat makes her stories exceptional, though, is the way the surface reality they detail so sharply is shot through with a curious dyed-black magic: a daylight-shunning bedsit dweller is visited by a mysterious lover whose angel wings keep getting in the way; a pizza-delivery boy is waylaid, Gulliver-like, by tiny ghosts who literally stitch him up; a foursome out clubbing are abruptly transmuted into Ken and Barbie dolls, missing their most precious parts . . .\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57510195757429,"sku":"9781953835192","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781953835192.jpg?v=1787130529"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-susan-compo.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}