Fallout

Hats off to Jones (The Uninvited Guests; The Outcast) for starting a novel with a 13-year-old boy picking the lock at the psychiatric hospital to spring his mother. That startling opening draws readers into the romantic story of a young writer in 1970s London. Luke breaks away from his small town in northern England and embarks on a journey to becoming a playwright. His story twists and turns through the London theater scene and drug culture as Luke struggles with literary ambition, success, and the throes of falling in and out of love. In his naïveté, the quirky playwright uses women like tissues and goes home to write plays until the wee hours. With a producer and a woman stage manager, Luke forms a theater company and the first of several triangles in his quest for love, art, and friendship. When Luke becomes enmeshed with a married actress, he comes of age by facing the consequences.