A PORTRAIT OF an alcoholic family in a North London suburb during Britain's dingy mid-1970s does not, admittedly, sound like the most promising of concepts for a novel. But the wry, compassionate wit and deftness of characterization in Gerard Woodward's second novel quickly overwhelm any reservations the reader may have.

Woodward's first, August, followed the Jones family through the 1960s, and despite troubling undercurrents the novel was, in the main, joyous and life-affirming: like the decade itself, perhaps. But I'll Go to Bed at Noon takes us into the next decade, which was like one long, ten-year hangover of strikes,

Nov 2004

Save the Planet, Eat Your Pug

Never Work with Children or Audiences

It’s a Knockoff

Not Much Comfort

Night Plunderers & River Pilferers

Heretic in the Pulpit

What the Doctor Ordered

Joyful Logorrhoea

Serving up a Treat

Voulez-Vous Coucher Avec Cet Homme?

Turning Up One’s Nose

Fifty Shades of Success

Kiss Kiss

Modern Manhood

Culture Clash

Existence of an Exile

Grim OOP North

Horribly Sane

The Caribbean Queen

The Joylessness of Self

Savage Life

The Order of the Good Death

The Old, Nowadays- They’re All the Same

Insights on Indexing

Heart And Seoul

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