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Suedehead
Skinheads were dead, man. Phased out. Home had never appealed. All his life he had dreamed about a plush flat somewhere in the West End of London. So now he would make the leap from poverty street into the affluent society. In one gigantic jump.
Fresh out of stir after kicking a police sergeant’s head in, former skinhead Joe Hawkins is heading for the big time – a job in a firm of stockbrokers, a swanky flat and (hopefully) plenty of money. A whole new style is called for – so Joe becomes a Suedehead.
The hair is a few millimetres longer, the uniform a velvet-collared crombie coat, bowler hat and neatly-furled umbrella – with razor sharp tip. For while Joe might be playing the establishment pet, he remains the unrepentently vicious, cunning hooligan from Skinhead, intent on pulling women, stealing and putting the boot in. It’s not long before he finds some other Suedes willing to commit mayhem under cover of respectability... but can Joe and respectability ever really get along?
Suedehead is the second of Richard Allen’s era-defining cult novels featuring anti-hero Joe Hawkins. First published in 1971, this new edition features an introduction by Andrew Stevens.
110 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1971
19 people are currently reading
192 people want to read
About the author
Richard Allen
58 books37 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
'Richard Allen' is the name on the front cover of the million-selling Skinhead books. The name was thought of by the editors at the London publishing firm New English Library and given by them to Jim Moffatt, one of a number of hack writers who churned out their books to order.
Born of Irish extraction, Jim Moffatt went to Britain and learnt his trade writing up to six stories a week (thrillers, spies, Westerns) for pulp fiction magazines. He moved on to writing books, and by the mid-seventies reckoned he had produced 250 in the previous 20 years, at a rate of 10,000 words a day when deadlines were approaching. Meanwhile, the managing director of the ailing New English Library imprint was desperate to make inroads into a new audience of younger readers; his editorial board came up with the idea of commissioning a novel set in the emerging skinhead subculture. In six days Moffatt wrote Skinhead. The book was an immediate hit, and many of its youthful readers were convinced that the author was a real hooligan, not a 55-year-old Canadian who always wore a jacket and tie and whose lurid tales of sex and street violence were written from the same seafront cottage in Sidmouth in which he also penned a column for the local paper. Soon after Skinhead Farewell Moffatt's real-life relationship with NEL came to an end.
Moffatt died of cancer in the early nineties, just at the time when the skinhead style was coming back into fashion.
'Richard Allen' is the name on the front cover of the million-selling Skinhead books. The name was thought of by the editors at the London publishing firm New English Library and given by them to Jim Moffatt, one of a number of hack writers who churned out their books to order.
Born of Irish extraction, Jim Moffatt went to Britain and learnt his trade writing up to six stories a week (thrillers, spies, Westerns) for pulp fiction magazines. He moved on to writing books, and by the mid-seventies reckoned he had produced 250 in the previous 20 years, at a rate of 10,000 words a day when deadlines were approaching. Meanwhile, the managing director of the ailing New English Library imprint was desperate to make inroads into a new audience of younger readers; his editorial board came up with the idea of commissioning a novel set in the emerging skinhead subculture. In six days Moffatt wrote Skinhead. The book was an immediate hit, and many of its youthful readers were convinced that the author was a real hooligan, not a 55-year-old Canadian who always wore a jacket and tie and whose lurid tales of sex and street violence were written from the same seafront cottage in Sidmouth in which he also penned a column for the local paper. Soon after Skinhead Farewell Moffatt's real-life relationship with NEL came to an end.
Moffatt died of cancer in the early nineties, just at the time when the skinhead style was coming back into fashion.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
August 7, 2021
It was an interesting read back in the 1970's but it is very dated now. I think I was being generous with a 3 rating.
It was an attractive read when I was a young boy growing up learning about life but certainly not the sort of novel I would read these days. More suited to a teenager than someone my age,
It was an attractive read when I was a young boy growing up learning about life but certainly not the sort of novel I would read these days. More suited to a teenager than someone my age,
May 25, 2024
Suedehead is James Moffatt's 'Skinhead at the Top' as Joe Hawkins, the anti-hero of the previous year's Skinhead attempts to better himself in life and cross the class boundaries. Sentenced to 18 months in prison at the end of the previous book, in a plot twist designed to antagonize a right leaning readership, the released Joe manipulates the system, exploiting the generosity of a prisoner's aid society into funding him a plush flat, and even worms his way into a job at a stock broking firm. How long though will it be before Joe's real nature breaks through his new, gentrified veneer?
Suedehead is cursed with an influx of secondary characters who turn out to be irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, a familiar trait of Moffatt’s. Joe clashes with his grotesque Irish landlady Mrs. Malloy, whose only purpose in the book is to be an outlet for Moffatt's anti-Irish sentiments. After she fulfills that purpose, she is out the door. Moffatt then relocates the action to Soho where Joe gets an accountancy job working for rich, ruthless porn baron John Matson, who Joe suspects is setting him up as a fall guy...only to throw this subplot away too. A pity as Moffatt writes about Soho with a degree of authenticity, as well as plenty of venom. Matson is an obvious facsimile of real life Soho dirty bookshop kingpin John Mason. Moffatt even alludes to Mason's background as a theatre carpenter as well as his nickname 'God'. Adding a 'T' to Mason's name was Moffatt’s idea of covering his tracks. The brief, Soho set part of Suedehead with its allusions to Police corruption and descriptions of sweaty baldheaded men in dirty bookshops, ‘tarted up birds’ and tripping hippies, reads like the work of a man who knew those streets well, and was looking for an escape route.
I think the trick with Moffatt is to never care a great deal about the secondary characters as invariably they end up being discarded... the Moffatt world is a fickle one. However you can always rely on Moffatt to plug away at Seagram's Hundred Pipers- the true love of the man's life- in Moffatt books all roads lead to Seagram's Hundred Pipers.
"I like this scotch, what brand is it" Lois asked as if the rest of the world did not exist at that precise moment.
"Seagram's Hundred Pipers, quite new I understand"
"Seagram’s...are they the people who make Canadian Rye?"
The bulk of Suedehead serves not only as a follow up to Moffatt's own work but as a speculative sequel to A Clockwork Orange, concerned as it is with a former thug's struggle to adapt to straight society and hold back those thoughts of rape and ultra-violence. Suedehead though is mainly just a frustrating read that bears the hallmarks of Jim Moffatt writing a book with no fixed idea of where he was heading. Sexual tensions threaten to rear their ugly head between Joe and his enabler Bernice Hale, an older woman and queen of mixed messages...flashing her thighs and cleavage at Joe one minute, then reminding him she has a son the same age as Joe the next. 'In the knowledge of the exquisite power her chest measurements gave her, she basked in either glory or torment'. Don't get too used to Bernice however, as after being lusted over in print by Moffatt she then gets ditched from the pages of Suedehead. Only to be replaced by Marrisa Stone, an almost identical naive do-gooder and frustrated older woman "at night she lay in bed writhing in untold agony, wishing that a man -any man- would burst into her room and rape her'.
Whereas Skinhead, for all its hyper-exploitative excess, felt it had its feet grounded in reality, Suedehead jumps the shark, years before that expression was invented. It's tough to buy into the idea that the Joe Hawkins of the original book had the chameleon like ability to blend in with the nobs and the toffs, going from the king of the skinheads to a bowler hat wearing city gent. Of course Joe doesn't abstain from his old ways entirely, earning extra money on the sly by robbing and bashing older, gay men who pick Joe up for sex. Homosexuality is a preoccupation of Suedehead, lending the book a few potentially revealing moments. Joe flies into a violent rage when his sexuality is questioned by one of his pickups "are you one of us?", and yet while Moffatt might portray Joe as a randy, resolutely heterosexual, his relationships with women either prove to be short lived or end violently. Curiously, when Moffatt writes about Marrisa Stone, the main female love interest in the book, it feels as if he is describing himself. Blacks, trade unionists, and Britain's entry into the European Union are Marrisa's bête noires, as they were Moffatt's. Making her Moffatt's dream date, but certainly not his creation's. Joe's relationship with the older woman ending in flying fists and broken ribs, mirroring his dealings with older, gay men. Towards the end of the book, Joe takes to checking out a young couple in a bar, but bats more of an erotic eye at the guy 'He had a handsome face whereas hers was plain and pock-marked. He had a hairy chest peeping from under a loose, unbuttoned shirt…he wore tight Levi's and made no attempt to conceal his overly developed manhood'. A rather homoerotic observation for a straight, homophobic character to make, or a straight, homophobic author to write. Was Moffatt a closet case? It's tempting to theorize that self-loathing was behind the hatred of others that is let loose in his books.
The vitriol aimed at gays in Moffatt's books often emanates from the perpetrator’s fears that they too might be gay, this from 1980’s Mod Rule “Joe wanted to bash the bastard. He hated queers with a virile youth's inner fear of turning into one”. While in 1972’s Skinhead Girls, the heroine is also tormented by the idea that she is gay “Her mind boiled as she ran. Was she? Wasn’t she? The heat of the hippie girl’s body against hers had been delectable”. Saying that am I conning myself into casting Moffatt as a self-hating gay, due to that making him a more intriguing, sympathetic and palatable figure, rather than facing up to the idea that the man might simply have been a bigot and a bully.
While it is admirable that Moffatt didn't just write a carbon copy of Skinhead, sadly Suedehead, along with the later Dragon Skins, only serves as evidence that Moffatt was lost as a writer when diverting from the Skinhead formula. Full of hateful, charmless people who can't their act together, these characteristics unfortunately define the book as well. Suedehead is a ball of negative energy that aimlessly bounces around for 110 pages, yet even at his messiest you instantly know when you are reading a Moffatt. His books always have the air of...to nab a few lyrics from The Jam..."pubs and wormwood scrubs and too many right wing meetings". Not even standing under Niagara Falls will make you feel clean after reading a Moffatt. His books are a ticket to the man's private hell. Before descending into that snake-pit, maybe it is wise to follow Moffatt’s lead and down a few Seagram’s Hundred Pipers, he advised as if the rest of the world did not exist at that precise moment.
Suedehead is cursed with an influx of secondary characters who turn out to be irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, a familiar trait of Moffatt’s. Joe clashes with his grotesque Irish landlady Mrs. Malloy, whose only purpose in the book is to be an outlet for Moffatt's anti-Irish sentiments. After she fulfills that purpose, she is out the door. Moffatt then relocates the action to Soho where Joe gets an accountancy job working for rich, ruthless porn baron John Matson, who Joe suspects is setting him up as a fall guy...only to throw this subplot away too. A pity as Moffatt writes about Soho with a degree of authenticity, as well as plenty of venom. Matson is an obvious facsimile of real life Soho dirty bookshop kingpin John Mason. Moffatt even alludes to Mason's background as a theatre carpenter as well as his nickname 'God'. Adding a 'T' to Mason's name was Moffatt’s idea of covering his tracks. The brief, Soho set part of Suedehead with its allusions to Police corruption and descriptions of sweaty baldheaded men in dirty bookshops, ‘tarted up birds’ and tripping hippies, reads like the work of a man who knew those streets well, and was looking for an escape route.
I think the trick with Moffatt is to never care a great deal about the secondary characters as invariably they end up being discarded... the Moffatt world is a fickle one. However you can always rely on Moffatt to plug away at Seagram's Hundred Pipers- the true love of the man's life- in Moffatt books all roads lead to Seagram's Hundred Pipers.
"I like this scotch, what brand is it" Lois asked as if the rest of the world did not exist at that precise moment.
"Seagram's Hundred Pipers, quite new I understand"
"Seagram’s...are they the people who make Canadian Rye?"
The bulk of Suedehead serves not only as a follow up to Moffatt's own work but as a speculative sequel to A Clockwork Orange, concerned as it is with a former thug's struggle to adapt to straight society and hold back those thoughts of rape and ultra-violence. Suedehead though is mainly just a frustrating read that bears the hallmarks of Jim Moffatt writing a book with no fixed idea of where he was heading. Sexual tensions threaten to rear their ugly head between Joe and his enabler Bernice Hale, an older woman and queen of mixed messages...flashing her thighs and cleavage at Joe one minute, then reminding him she has a son the same age as Joe the next. 'In the knowledge of the exquisite power her chest measurements gave her, she basked in either glory or torment'. Don't get too used to Bernice however, as after being lusted over in print by Moffatt she then gets ditched from the pages of Suedehead. Only to be replaced by Marrisa Stone, an almost identical naive do-gooder and frustrated older woman "at night she lay in bed writhing in untold agony, wishing that a man -any man- would burst into her room and rape her'.
Whereas Skinhead, for all its hyper-exploitative excess, felt it had its feet grounded in reality, Suedehead jumps the shark, years before that expression was invented. It's tough to buy into the idea that the Joe Hawkins of the original book had the chameleon like ability to blend in with the nobs and the toffs, going from the king of the skinheads to a bowler hat wearing city gent. Of course Joe doesn't abstain from his old ways entirely, earning extra money on the sly by robbing and bashing older, gay men who pick Joe up for sex. Homosexuality is a preoccupation of Suedehead, lending the book a few potentially revealing moments. Joe flies into a violent rage when his sexuality is questioned by one of his pickups "are you one of us?", and yet while Moffatt might portray Joe as a randy, resolutely heterosexual, his relationships with women either prove to be short lived or end violently. Curiously, when Moffatt writes about Marrisa Stone, the main female love interest in the book, it feels as if he is describing himself. Blacks, trade unionists, and Britain's entry into the European Union are Marrisa's bête noires, as they were Moffatt's. Making her Moffatt's dream date, but certainly not his creation's. Joe's relationship with the older woman ending in flying fists and broken ribs, mirroring his dealings with older, gay men. Towards the end of the book, Joe takes to checking out a young couple in a bar, but bats more of an erotic eye at the guy 'He had a handsome face whereas hers was plain and pock-marked. He had a hairy chest peeping from under a loose, unbuttoned shirt…he wore tight Levi's and made no attempt to conceal his overly developed manhood'. A rather homoerotic observation for a straight, homophobic character to make, or a straight, homophobic author to write. Was Moffatt a closet case? It's tempting to theorize that self-loathing was behind the hatred of others that is let loose in his books.
The vitriol aimed at gays in Moffatt's books often emanates from the perpetrator’s fears that they too might be gay, this from 1980’s Mod Rule “Joe wanted to bash the bastard. He hated queers with a virile youth's inner fear of turning into one”. While in 1972’s Skinhead Girls, the heroine is also tormented by the idea that she is gay “Her mind boiled as she ran. Was she? Wasn’t she? The heat of the hippie girl’s body against hers had been delectable”. Saying that am I conning myself into casting Moffatt as a self-hating gay, due to that making him a more intriguing, sympathetic and palatable figure, rather than facing up to the idea that the man might simply have been a bigot and a bully.
While it is admirable that Moffatt didn't just write a carbon copy of Skinhead, sadly Suedehead, along with the later Dragon Skins, only serves as evidence that Moffatt was lost as a writer when diverting from the Skinhead formula. Full of hateful, charmless people who can't their act together, these characteristics unfortunately define the book as well. Suedehead is a ball of negative energy that aimlessly bounces around for 110 pages, yet even at his messiest you instantly know when you are reading a Moffatt. His books always have the air of...to nab a few lyrics from The Jam..."pubs and wormwood scrubs and too many right wing meetings". Not even standing under Niagara Falls will make you feel clean after reading a Moffatt. His books are a ticket to the man's private hell. Before descending into that snake-pit, maybe it is wise to follow Moffatt’s lead and down a few Seagram’s Hundred Pipers, he advised as if the rest of the world did not exist at that precise moment.
November 30, 2009
A Clockwork Orange, it ain't.
Trashily diverting read about a young hoodlum who sets himself up as a proper little city gent whilst indulging a passion for aggro and tarts.
The author lays his Daily Mail cards on the table in a note at the beginning, lamenting the failures of our 'permissable society'. What next in this Broken Britain? Young men weeing on war memorials?
Trashily diverting read about a young hoodlum who sets himself up as a proper little city gent whilst indulging a passion for aggro and tarts.
The author lays his Daily Mail cards on the table in a note at the beginning, lamenting the failures of our 'permissable society'. What next in this Broken Britain? Young men weeing on war memorials?
August 26, 2023
I read 'Skinhead' earlier this year and decided I wasn't going to read any more of this rubbish. However, I'm between books, had this and the third book purchased and waiting and confidently knew I could read this in an hour or two...
Suedehead is pretty much the same plot as 'Skinhead'. Joe Hawkins hates everyone and everything. He gets out of prison and instead of going back to his skinhead gang and the East End decides he's going to make something of his life so he gets a job in a stockbrokers, gets a swanky flat and dresses sharp whilst doing a bit of shagging and fighting.
There is far less sex and violence in this book than in 'Skinhead' and the book is much better off for it. That's not to say the book is 'good' (it's pretty terrible) but at least every page isn't flitting between graphic sex and violence. It doesn't feel quite as objectionable on every page but there are still exceptionally high levels of homophobia, misogyny, racism, domestic violence and right wing values - the entire book seems to veer from hate crime to planning sexual violence or exploitation and back again.
It's unavoidable, the book is exceptionally offensive, and laughably implausible (particularly the ease in which Hawkins gets access to resources like a flat and a top job), but it's not without merit (kind of).
In 'Skinhead' I think Allen's key message was society was permissive and causing youth to go wild and the solution was greater authoritarianism. The book was a huge seller and in many ways may have influenced skinhead culture rather than captured it. In this book the message is broadly the same (Hawkins hates 'everything' and his gang hate 'everything' too) but there is a clearer message too. In this book Hawkins carries on thinking he is owned something and he gets handout after handout off people for some reason to give him a leg up and yet there is a constant narrative - you don't belong in middle-class spaces. He doesn't have the money to support his high living and basically needs to steal, and engage in other crime to support himself. It's a book which tells it's working class readership, 'you see all them rich people and their nice clothes and houses - you can't have this.' It laughs at the idea of a meritocracy. I'm not 100% sure Allen is empathising with the working class or ridiculing them but nevertheless it is a constant narrative - no matter how much Hawkins steals or earns he can never keep up and his desire to make something of his life is futile.
Like in the first book he ends up with a gang of sort but it is evident that Hawkins isn't the leader and they don't fear him. In some ways they are independent of each other and have no hierarchy but it's clear the bonds are looser and each is very individualistic. It's almost as if the book is saying, 'these characters have no sense of bond or community'. I think it predates Thatcherism and the 'me first' culture by a good decade!
A few other observations for a 21st Century reader...Hawkins is probably gay and in deep denial. There are a couple of instances of him 'accidentally' picking up gay men with a view to robbing them. Likewise his constant objectification of women doesn't mark him out to be a stud, rather makes him appear to a) need a mother figure and b) constantly prove his masculinity to himself. I doubt anyone reading this in the early 70's would have thought he was gay but it kind of jumps out. Even though he is a horrible, selfish human being, in this book I got the sense that he was just desperate for someone to take care of him.
I'm not sure of the publication date, but I suspect many of the tropes in the book (the sharp dressing, bowler hats, sharpened umbrellas and older women sexual violence fantasies) seem ripped straight out of 'A Clockwork Orange' film released the same year and withdrawn due to the violent copycats in the UK. At the rate Allen was churning these out, I suspect he saw the film and then saw his 'sequel' on screen.
I also think Allen is nodding to his audience. Hawkins is often in flats with lots of books and it's made clear that he isn't particularly literate. A few times in the book he is seen to better himself and to try and read. I suspect Allen is waving and appreciating his young male working class audience who for which 'Suedehead' may have been the second book they ever struggled through.
I really wouldn't go out of one's way to read this. Being 'better' than 'Skinhead' is one thing and being not quite as horrifically prejudiced isn't exactly a glowing compliment but at least this book has a message of sorts. It's still a stupid book with a stupid plot and a stupid ending.
Suedehead is pretty much the same plot as 'Skinhead'. Joe Hawkins hates everyone and everything. He gets out of prison and instead of going back to his skinhead gang and the East End decides he's going to make something of his life so he gets a job in a stockbrokers, gets a swanky flat and dresses sharp whilst doing a bit of shagging and fighting.
There is far less sex and violence in this book than in 'Skinhead' and the book is much better off for it. That's not to say the book is 'good' (it's pretty terrible) but at least every page isn't flitting between graphic sex and violence. It doesn't feel quite as objectionable on every page but there are still exceptionally high levels of homophobia, misogyny, racism, domestic violence and right wing values - the entire book seems to veer from hate crime to planning sexual violence or exploitation and back again.
It's unavoidable, the book is exceptionally offensive, and laughably implausible (particularly the ease in which Hawkins gets access to resources like a flat and a top job), but it's not without merit (kind of).
In 'Skinhead' I think Allen's key message was society was permissive and causing youth to go wild and the solution was greater authoritarianism. The book was a huge seller and in many ways may have influenced skinhead culture rather than captured it. In this book the message is broadly the same (Hawkins hates 'everything' and his gang hate 'everything' too) but there is a clearer message too. In this book Hawkins carries on thinking he is owned something and he gets handout after handout off people for some reason to give him a leg up and yet there is a constant narrative - you don't belong in middle-class spaces. He doesn't have the money to support his high living and basically needs to steal, and engage in other crime to support himself. It's a book which tells it's working class readership, 'you see all them rich people and their nice clothes and houses - you can't have this.' It laughs at the idea of a meritocracy. I'm not 100% sure Allen is empathising with the working class or ridiculing them but nevertheless it is a constant narrative - no matter how much Hawkins steals or earns he can never keep up and his desire to make something of his life is futile.
Like in the first book he ends up with a gang of sort but it is evident that Hawkins isn't the leader and they don't fear him. In some ways they are independent of each other and have no hierarchy but it's clear the bonds are looser and each is very individualistic. It's almost as if the book is saying, 'these characters have no sense of bond or community'. I think it predates Thatcherism and the 'me first' culture by a good decade!
A few other observations for a 21st Century reader...Hawkins is probably gay and in deep denial. There are a couple of instances of him 'accidentally' picking up gay men with a view to robbing them. Likewise his constant objectification of women doesn't mark him out to be a stud, rather makes him appear to a) need a mother figure and b) constantly prove his masculinity to himself. I doubt anyone reading this in the early 70's would have thought he was gay but it kind of jumps out. Even though he is a horrible, selfish human being, in this book I got the sense that he was just desperate for someone to take care of him.
I'm not sure of the publication date, but I suspect many of the tropes in the book (the sharp dressing, bowler hats, sharpened umbrellas and older women sexual violence fantasies) seem ripped straight out of 'A Clockwork Orange' film released the same year and withdrawn due to the violent copycats in the UK. At the rate Allen was churning these out, I suspect he saw the film and then saw his 'sequel' on screen.
I also think Allen is nodding to his audience. Hawkins is often in flats with lots of books and it's made clear that he isn't particularly literate. A few times in the book he is seen to better himself and to try and read. I suspect Allen is waving and appreciating his young male working class audience who for which 'Suedehead' may have been the second book they ever struggled through.
I really wouldn't go out of one's way to read this. Being 'better' than 'Skinhead' is one thing and being not quite as horrifically prejudiced isn't exactly a glowing compliment but at least this book has a message of sorts. It's still a stupid book with a stupid plot and a stupid ending.
November 3, 2025
While not a perfect book, it's still intriguing in its own way.
The second in a series of Skinhead tales, this book sees the return of Joe Hawkins, a skinhead who committed one too many acts of thuggery and was sent to jail for kicking in the head of a copper.
After doing his time, Joe decides not to seek out his old gang but travel down a different path and becomes a Suedehead. He lets his hair grow bit, dresses up in a suit with a bowler hat and enters the world of business in the office.
But Joe isn't really suited to this life, the job pays poorly, and in some ways a Suedehead is little more than a well-dressed thug whose exterior image is a cover up for the real thing lurking beneath the smooth surface. Joe isn't making a fortune in his job, he wants more than it can offer and finds himself resorting to double crossing schemes, fake soliciting, gay bashing and theft among other things.
Despite his new image, and attempts to lead a new life, Joe is still the same skinhead thug he was from the very beginning. Savagery is in his blood, and it is impossible to fully let the old life go.
The book might be to some readers a minor, poor-man's CLOCKWORK ORANGE, and is a product of its time. It hasn't always aged well, and some of the dialogue will seem unbelievable at times. On one page the protagonist says, "To blazes with her" after beating a woman he had an affair with. Did skinheads ever talk like that?
The author was prolific writer on hire for New English Library paperbacks. He shows signs occasionally of writing to order. He was a middle-aged gentleman living by the Devon coast, not in the city streets he wrote about. It's been said he did some research on the skinhead culture by talking to some gang members. But for most part it seems that he writes about something that he has observed from afar. He detests the skinhead people he writes about but appears to share some of their right-wing attitudes on issues like immigration. Some passages in the book are the author's voice speaking, he was an old-fashioned conservative and wrote about the state of things with a disapproving eye.
His books were successful in their time and have a cult following of sorts. Not always well written but still compelling in their own way. I thought I had read the first book in the series - SKINHEAD - many years ago. But after some checking found that it was the final in the series that I had an old copy of. So, I'll make SKINHEAD the next book to read.
The second in a series of Skinhead tales, this book sees the return of Joe Hawkins, a skinhead who committed one too many acts of thuggery and was sent to jail for kicking in the head of a copper.
After doing his time, Joe decides not to seek out his old gang but travel down a different path and becomes a Suedehead. He lets his hair grow bit, dresses up in a suit with a bowler hat and enters the world of business in the office.
But Joe isn't really suited to this life, the job pays poorly, and in some ways a Suedehead is little more than a well-dressed thug whose exterior image is a cover up for the real thing lurking beneath the smooth surface. Joe isn't making a fortune in his job, he wants more than it can offer and finds himself resorting to double crossing schemes, fake soliciting, gay bashing and theft among other things.
Despite his new image, and attempts to lead a new life, Joe is still the same skinhead thug he was from the very beginning. Savagery is in his blood, and it is impossible to fully let the old life go.
The book might be to some readers a minor, poor-man's CLOCKWORK ORANGE, and is a product of its time. It hasn't always aged well, and some of the dialogue will seem unbelievable at times. On one page the protagonist says, "To blazes with her" after beating a woman he had an affair with. Did skinheads ever talk like that?
The author was prolific writer on hire for New English Library paperbacks. He shows signs occasionally of writing to order. He was a middle-aged gentleman living by the Devon coast, not in the city streets he wrote about. It's been said he did some research on the skinhead culture by talking to some gang members. But for most part it seems that he writes about something that he has observed from afar. He detests the skinhead people he writes about but appears to share some of their right-wing attitudes on issues like immigration. Some passages in the book are the author's voice speaking, he was an old-fashioned conservative and wrote about the state of things with a disapproving eye.
His books were successful in their time and have a cult following of sorts. Not always well written but still compelling in their own way. I thought I had read the first book in the series - SKINHEAD - many years ago. But after some checking found that it was the final in the series that I had an old copy of. So, I'll make SKINHEAD the next book to read.
June 18, 2021
Skinheads and spearheads were part of my life growing up in the 1970s. For many it was a fashion a reaction to beatings mods rockers and hippies but later they came to represent racists and neofascists
November 15, 2019
Good old English pulp fiction. It was OK, a quick read but not believable in some situation.
October 17, 2021
A quick read, I finished in an an hour or so, I felt this book lacked the social commentary of it’s predecessor and just relied on sex and violence for shock value.
October 21, 2024
Much less believable than the 1st book.
but still full of selfish youth ideology,
and a true Trumpism mindset of righteousness
and entitlement.
but still full of selfish youth ideology,
and a true Trumpism mindset of righteousness
and entitlement.
June 26, 2007
Pretty badly written and quite teenage, but a quick trashy read with some interesting social commentary. Also, had a lovely cover, but you wouldn't know that.
August 29, 2012
I thought it was good in 1971 (LOL)
January 31, 2013
Annoying the kindle version is very badly typeset and has fixed line breaks.
That aside, not a bad book. Has a feel of Quadrophenia meets Clockwork Orange to it.
That aside, not a bad book. Has a feel of Quadrophenia meets Clockwork Orange to it.
April 8, 2013
Not the Smiths' song ;)
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