Adam Mars-Jones – författare

On the Sunday of his eighteenth birthday, in 1975, Colin takes a walk on Box Hill, a biker hang-out. There he accidentally trips over Ray, a biker napping under a tree – and that’s where it all starts. This transgressive, darkly affecting love story between men, winner of the 2019 Fitzcarraldo Editions Novel Prize, is a stunning novel of desire and domination by one of Britain’s most accomplished writers.

William thought trust was a good idea; Terry needed a lover who would keep his little secret. But how does accidental monogamy survive in a world ruled by illness and denial? By the author of "Lantern Lecture", winner of the Somerset Maugham Award.

'Gripping.' New Statesman 'Compulsive.' Observer 'Strange and exhilarating.' Sunday Times 'A joy to read.' Sunday Telegraph 'Constantly surprising.' London Review of Books 'One of the most original comic creations in recent fiction.' Guardian Time passed slowly in the 1950s, especially if you'd been put to bed and told not to move (until further notice). But John Cromer, the central character of this extraordinary novel, is much closer to being an explorer than a victim. He's the weakest hero in fiction - unless he's one of the strongest. The first instalment of the semi-infinite Pilcrow sequence, this novel of capacious wit and style marks the opening chapter of the most memorable and enjoyable experiment in modern fiction. 'Pilcrow is a humdinger, a startling work that stands out against the monotonous field of contemporary British fiction as a genuine, almost miraculous oddity.' Metro

Cedilla continues the history of John Cromer ("adventures" sounds rather too hectic) begun by Pilcrow, described by the London Review of Books as " peculiar, original, utterly idiosyncratic" and by the Sunday Times as " truly exhilarating". These huge and sparkling books are particularly surprising coming from a writer of previously (let's be tactful) modest productivity, who had seemed stubbornly attached to small forms. John Cromer is the weakest hero in literature -- unless he's one of the strongest. In Cedilla he launches himself into the wider world of mainstream education, and comes upon deeper joys, subtler setbacks. The tone and texture of the two books is similar, but their emotional worlds are very different. The slow unfolding of themes is perhaps closer to Indian classical music than the Western tradition -- raga/saga, anyone? This isn't an epic novel as such things are normally understood, to be sure. It contains no physical battles and the bare minimum of travel, yet surely it qualifies. None of the reviews of Pilcrow explicitly compared it to a coral reef made of a billion tiny Crunchie bars, but that was the drift of opinion. Page by page, Cedilla too provides unfailing pleasure.

'Joyous.' Observer'Tremendously entertaining.' Irish Times 'Truly original.' The Times** A Times and Guardian Book of the Year **'We make lazy assumptions about the centre of things and its location. Who's to say that the centre of things isn't in a corner, way over there?''Nobody can be a person twenty-fours hours a day - it just can't be done. At night the sets dissolve and the performance falls away. We're off the books.'That's John Cromer talking, in this fresh instalment of his lifelong saga. For John, embarking on a new stage of life in 1970s Cambridge, charm and wit aren't just assets, they are survival skills. It may be a case of John against the world. If so, don't be in too much of a hurry to bet on the world.Conjuring a remarkable voice and mind, Caret is a feast of a novel, served on a succession of small plates, each portion providing an adult's daily intake of literary nourishment. Reading it - like any encounter with John Cromer -- is guaranteed to help you work, rest and play.'Thank god for John Cromer and his creator Adam Mars-Jones, one of the funniest, most self-aware characters in English fiction, whose minute observations on everything from constipation to lust are a source of unexpected delight.' Linda Grant

'We make lazy assumptions about the centre of things and its location. Who's to say that the centre of things isn't in a corner, way over there?''People in authority are always saying you should know your rights, though I've noticed they don't much enjoy it when you do.''Nobody can be a person twenty-fours hours a day - it just can't be done. At night the sets dissolve and the performance falls away. We're off the books.' That's John Cromer talking, in this fresh instalment of his lifelong saga. For John, embarking on a new stage of life in 1970s Cambridge, charm and wit aren't just assets, they are survival skills. It may be a case of John against the world. If so, don't be in too much of a hurry to bet on the world.Conjuring a remarkable voice and mind, Caret is a feast of a novel, served on a succession of small plates, each portion providing an adult's daily intake of literary nourishment. Reading it - like any encounter with John Cromer -- is guaranteed to help you work, rest and play.'Thank god for John Cromer and his creator Adam Mars-Jones, one of the funniest, most self-aware characters in English fiction, whose minute observations on everything from constipation to lust are a source of unexpected delight.' Linda Grant

‘Late Spring, directed and co-written by Yasujirō Ozu, was released in 1949, which makes it an old film, or a film that has been new for a long time…’ So begins this remarkable essay in narrative reconstruction. Film-critic, novelist and essayist Mars-Jones gives a virtuoso performance as the lost figure of film explainer, drawing out a host of meaning from the reticence of Ozu’s classic Japanese movie.‘So long after its first release Late Spring is still limber and elusive,’ enthuses Mars-Jones. Noriko Smiling breathes new life into both Ozu’s film, and film studies as a whole. There has never been a film book like this.

Pristina, Kosovo, 1999. Barry Ashton, recently divorced, has been deployed as a civil engineer attached to the Royal Engineers corps in the British Army. In an extraordinary feat of ventriloquism, Adam Mars-Jones constructs a literary story with a thoroughly unliterary narrator, and a narrative that is anything but comic through the medium of a character who, essentially, is. Exploring masculinity, class and identity, Batlava Lake is a brilliant story of men and war by one of Britain's most accomplished writers.