Address Book
Address Book is the new work of fiction by the Costa-shortlisted author of Skin Lane. Neil Bartlett’s cycle of stories takes us to seven very different times and situations: from a new millennium civil partnership celebration to erotic obsession in a Victorian tenement, from a council-flat bedroom at the height of the AIDS crisis to a doctor’s living-room in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic, they lead us through decades of change to discover hope in the strangest of places.
Neil says, ‘Every place I’ve ever slept in, I’ve always wondered about what went on at that address before I moved in. To write this book, I went back to some significant places in my own life and let the walls talk to me. The result of that listening is this new cycle of stories.’
Editor Nathan Evans says, ‘I’ve loved Neil’s writing since finding his first book in the university library, so to publish his latest is something of a dream for me. Inkandescent are proud to be working with such an important queer writer with so much to say about where we are and how we got here.’
‘Bartlett is a pioneer on and off the page and we are lucky to have him telling our stories’—DAMIAN BARR
‘One of England’s finest writers’—EDMUND WHITE
Neil Bartlett
Neil Bartlett is an acclaimed author of plays, adaptations, translations and novels. His first novel, Ready To Catch Him Should He Fall, was recently republished by Profile as a Serpent’s Tail Classic, his second, Mr. Clive and Mr. Page, was nominated for the Whitbread Prize in 1996, his third, Skin Lane, was shortlisted for the Costa Award in 2007, his fourth, The Disappearance Boy, earnt him a nomination for Stonewall Author of the Year 2014, his fifth, Address Book, was published by Inkandescent and was nominated for the Polari Book Prize 2022. Neil is also a maker of theatre, and was awarded an OBE in 2000 in recognition of his work as Artistic Director of the Lyric Hammersmith. He has created work for the National Theatre, RSC, Manchester Royal Exchange, Bristol Old Vic, Edinburgh International Festival, Manchester International Festival, Aldeburgh and Brighton Festivals, Wellcome Foundation, Artangel, Tate Britain—and the Royal Vauxhall Tavern.
