JOHN FLEMING - Theme from The Now Now Express - Book

Book - "lost cult source paperback novel".

The Now Now Express novel is a newly published novel set in London in the 1980s among a batch of smart alec Dublin migrants whose friendship is coming unstuck. They spurn the economics that underpin most of the diaspora and adhere to something more existential, underground and culturally cynical.

The central character is Patrick who takes on a twisted identity of the Irish patron saint while nursing his broken heart. The novel follows his trajectory across London as a participant observer of the brain drain and the collapse of his sympathy for his friends. He lionises the older Kilburn-style migrants of the 1950s. The novel explores some of the fulcrum/threshold moment of a 1980s migrant wave who were educated and forward-looking (and in this instant Dublin and suburban rather than rural) while still being rooted in much of the sentiment of Ireland’s past.

There is a bit of the sociological novel about The Now Now Express. But it has also been described as an edgy, cult work. It attempts to frame and capture something of my generation’s experience of London. It is steeped in the jaded, recessionary, pre-success Ireland of 40 years ago.

The concept of the now now express is a train that runs through your life and you constantly feel you are not on board: it is the idea that you are lagging behind your intended life cycle. And The Prongs are a band who live in its pages.

* See also listing for the CD The Prongs - "Theme From The Now Now Express"

"A thoroughly infectious read. I couldn't put it down and spent nine hours in A&E as a consequence. The best book and CD combo in Irish rock history".
- Facebook comment from Martin Bramah
(The Blue Orchids, founding member of The Fall)