Five Pubs, Two Bars and a Nightclub

Gangsters, pimps, dealers, bookies and the Nation of Islam...Welcome to Cardiff!

Eight fast-paced and gritty short stories from this electric new British writer.

Joan Afton

This is a catchy and entertaining novel, surprisingly upbeat in tone, about a decidedly not-upbeat slice of life, as depicted in eight rather different drinking establishments in Cardiff, Wales. The specificity of detail of the world described therein sets this series of loosely connected short stories apart from the raft of recent crime fiction influenced by the films of Quentin Tarantino.

While the similarities are there-the petty criminals setting up unsuccessful scams, the interwoven yet not chronological plots, the offhand violence-Williams redeems his work from mimicry by filtering his vision through a European lens. The complex issues of racism, underemployment, gender politics and disappearance of local culture are all touched upon, without having to rely upon the ironic distance and casual murder of a Pulp Fiction. And each of the characters, while never deeply investigated, brings forward another element to create a whole that is funny and complicated, bleak yet offering the possibility of redemption and change.

John Williams (1922-1994) was born and raised in northeast Texas. Despite a talent for writing and acting, Williams flunked out of a local junior college after his first year. He reluctantly joined the war effort, enlisting in the Army Air Corps, and managing to write a draft of his first novel while there. Once home, Williams found a small publisher for the novel and enrolled at the University of Denver, where he was eventually to receive both his B.A. and M.A., and where he was to return as an instructor in 1954.