Billy and the Devil - Softcover

"This is wild stuff, very dark and very brilliant." - Conor O'Callaghan, author "Put it this way, a great novel doesn't end after you have read the last page. It reaches out after publication and plants its own mythology in the world. This is the highest achievement of Lilleyman's debut. I recommend: read this book." - Interrobang Arts Magazine "Brilliantly evoked in all its sordid detail, black humour, demented courage, and alienation." - Jane Rogers, author of Mr Wroe's Virgins and Promised Lands "Billy and the Devil is a completely convincing character study. Said Billy is a laugh, a tart, a drunk, and more. Dean Lilleyman uses various writerly and unmannerly techniques to show us the many ages and faces of his loveable and detestable anti-hero. The book is tender, funny, sad and grotesque - but however gruelling Billy's descent becomes, it bleeds its own dark poetry. Here, dirty realism has left Los Angeles for Chesterfield, where it finds itself at a garden barbeque drinking Leibfraumilch and barley wine. Terrific." - Matthew Clegg, author of West North East

Billy has it all. Or at least he does when there's a bottle in his hand. Then the world is his oyster, and he the rotting black pearl at its heart. Lover, fighter...and drinker...Billy spends each day battling his demons, and throwing away everyone and everything who can give him hope. Billy and the Devil is a shocking and intimate portrayal of isolation, sexual misadventure, and addiction. Told in a series of unflinching episodes, either first-hand or through the eyes of others, this is a journey to a place of no return. But then, what choice does Billy have? By turns sad, poetic, uplifting and brutal, you will be challenged, embraced and ultimately moved by this astonishing debut novel. Raw, real, with moments of pure imaginative, visceral genius, the reader feels every word.