Boy About Town by Tony Fletcher

Bestselling author Tony Fletcher's account of a life in love with music, taking the reader back to the glory days of the 70s.

'I was no longer fitting in at school. I was unsure of my friends, and they were increasingly unsure of me. I wanted to be a rock star. But while all around, voices were starting to break, acne beginning to appear, facial hair sprouting, I remained all flabby flesh and innate scruff, with a high-pitched whine and not a muscle to my name. I was the runt of the class and rarely allowed to forget it. I had no father at home to help me out, and could hardly talk to my mum. So I took solace in The Jam.'

As a boy, Tony Fletcher frequently felt out of place. Yet somehow he secured a ringside seat for one of the most creative periods in British cultural history.

Boy About Town tells the story of the bestselling author’s formative years in the pre- and post-punk music scenes of London, counting down, from fifty to number one: attendance at seminal gigs and encounters with musical heroes; schoolboy projects that became national success stories; the style culture of punks, mods and skinheads and the tribal violence that enveloped them; life as a latchkey kid in a single-parent household; weekends on the football terraces in a quest for street credibility; and the teenage boy’s unending obsession with losing his virginity.

Boy About Town is an evocative, bittersweet, amusing and wholly original account of growing up and coming of age in the glory days of the 1970s.

Tony Fletcher

Reviews

Wearing the right clothes, liking the right bands – this book summons up what it meant to be a teenager in the 70s.

Guardian

Brought back happy memories when bands and their fans were as one.

Damian O'Neill, The Undertones

Brought back happy memories when bands and their fans were as one.

Damian O'Neill, The Undertones

[A] compelling and evocative memoir …full of great memories of bands, gigs, clothes, girls and parties. It celebrates the vitality of youth and the spirt of the times.

Sabotage Times

Even if you weren’t there when all this happened, the fast paced narrative will make you feel as if you were … An excellent read and I really would urge anyone with even a passing interest in punk, The Jam, The Who or what it was like being a music mad teenager in London in the late seventies to check it out.

Faith Magazine

[An] excellent memoir of adolescent angst and musical obsession … it is surprisingly candid, wryly funny, occasionally harrowing, yet always honest in its descriptions … brilliantly written.

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Faith Magazine

A must for anyone with an interest in the 1970s and 80s music scene … Featuring a vibrant cast of supporting characters … Boy About Town in an evocative and wholly original account of growing up and coming of age in the glory days of the 1970s.

City Life

Funny, fascinating, and at times quite moving

The Bookbag

City Life

Funny, fascinating, and at times quite moving

The Bookbag

Fletcher paints a vivid picture of the time – both through the eyes of a boy dealing with growing up and into the underground music scene of bands, fanzines, small record labels, and a staunchly independent spirit …It’s a great read and one which potentially invites the difficult second album syndrome.

Monkey Picks

Paperback

9780099558552

August 15, 2014

Windmill Books

368 pages

RRP $19.99
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Trade Paperback

9780434021673

July 15, 2013

William Heinemann

368 pages

RRP $34.99
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EBook

9781446492789

July 4, 2013

Cornerstone Digital

368 pages
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