Barry Hines Bücher

Humankind's relationship to nature is governed by money in this first US publication of a classic by the greatest chronicler of the British working class

Ben, now a successful scriptwriter in his early 40s, returns to his home and his mining background when his father is taken ill with a stroke. Uneasily back with his family, he learns more about his father, the strikes of the 1980s, and finds solace with his sister-in-law.

Billy Casper is a boy with nowhere to go and nothing to say. He is part of the limbo generation of school leavers too old for lessons and too young to know anything about the outside world. He hates and he is hated. His family and friends are mean and tough and they're sure he's going to end up in big trouble. But Billy knows two things about his own world. He'll never work down the mines and he knows about animals. His only companion is his kestrel hawk, trained from the nest and like himself, with the will to destroy or be destroyed

First US publication of this unsentimental, sympathetic novel of theunemployed young in Thatcher's Britain. From Barry Hines, writer of A Kestrel for a Knave and The Gamekeeper1980, a city on its knees afterdecades of steel industry decline and facing the brutal economic policies ofThatcher. Mick wants to learn how to be a motorcycle mechanic, but bad luck,inexperience, and tough times make it hard to find a job. At a disco oneevening, he meets Karen, who works in a shoe shop, and the pair hang out withMick's buddy, Alan. Mick and Alan's efforts to find jobs are in vain and theyface a remain jobless or join the army, which is recruiting to policethe North of Ireland.The author's unerring eye for detail and earfor dialogue are utterly engaging and evocative. Looks and Smiles is a gritty and poignant bulletin from a forgottenperiod of British history. A Barry Hines classic.

Patnáctiletý Billy Casper je kluk, jakých se ještě dnes po ulicích severoanglických průmyslových měst potulují tisíce: neúplná rodina mu už dávno přestala být skutečným domovem, do individualisticky soutěživého školního prostředí se nedokáže zařadit a ví jen, že o kariéru ve společnosti, která jej beztak už vystrčila ze svého středu, nemá zájem. Od svých vrstevníků a vyhlídek na bezútěšnou budoucnost se vzdálí až ve chvíli, kdy v mláděti poštolky, které získá, nalezne věrného druha a tvora stejně nepoddajného a toužícího po svobodě a volnosti ...