We’re delighted to be welcoming James Clarke to the shop for the launch of SANDERSON’S ISLE. Set in swinging London and the Lake District during the 1960s, and filled with gorgeous nature writing of the urban and the rural, Sanderson’s Isle is an electrifying novel portraying the moment when British society was unsettled and transformed by the counterculture. James will be in conversation with his editor Luke Brown, publishing director of Serpent’s Tail, who is a novelist in his own right (Theft and My Biggest Lie) as well as a lecturer in creative writing at University of Manchester, and who, like James, grew up in Lancashire.

About the book:

1969. Thomas Speake comes to London to look for his father but finds Sanderson instead, a larger-than-life TV presenter who hosts ‘midweek madness’ parties where the punch is spiked with acid. There Speake meets Marnie and promises to help her find her adoptive child, who has been taken by her birth mother to live off-grid in a hippie commune in the Lake District.

Forced to lie low after a violent accident, Speake joins Sanderson on a tour of the Lake District, where he’s researching a book to accompany his popular TV series, Sanderson’s Isle. Fascinated by local rumours about the hippies, Sanderson joins the search for their whereabouts. Amid the fierce beauty of the mountains, the cult is forming the kind of community that Speake – a drifter who belongs nowhere – is desperate to find but has been sent to betray.

About the author:

James Clarke grew up in the Rossendale Valley, Lancashire. His debut novel The Litten Path was written while studying at the Manchester Writing School, and went on to win the Betty Trask Prize. His second novel Hollow in the Land was a set of interlinked short stories set in a Lancashire valley. He lives in Manchester.

Doors: 18.30, event starts: 18.45

Tickets are £3.00 or free when pre-ordering a copy of the book. SANDERSON’S ISLE will also be available to purchase on the night and James will be signing copies after the talk. If you would like a signed copy but cannot make the event, please contact us on 0161 274 3331 or manchester@blackwell.co.uk and we can arrange this for you.