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Absolute Beginners: Lyric Theatre, London

John Lewis, The Times, July 2007

COLIN MACINNES'S 1959 novel Absolute Beginners remains a landmark in post-colonial literature, a brash, idealistic voyage through the Notting Hill race riots, seedy jazz dives, gay Soho and the birth of the teenager. It was a bestseller on its release in 1959 and has more or less stayed in print ever since. By the early 1980s, Paul Weller was citing it as his favourite novel (even naming a Jam song after it) and a new generation adopted it as a British Catcher In The Rye.

Total word count of piece: 1147

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