Wild Twin.

by Jeff Young

The new book by the author of the Costa Prize shortlisted Ghost Town.

‘To become invisible is what I want most, the dream of disappearing.’

One morning in the 1970s Jeff Young slips out of his parents’ home with the intention of hitch-hiking to Paris in search of a version of himself he calls the wild twin – a shadow boy, a feral drifter. There he falls headlong into a fever dream of dive hotels, rough sleeping, getting lost, squats, violence, poverty, thieving, illness and madness. Journeying across Europe, from cathedral to doss-house, from Red Light District to deportation and breakdown, finally Young returns to present-day Liverpool, caring for his dying father in the house he ran away from fifty years before, remembering the past with a man who can no longer remember.

From the author of the Costa-shortlisted Ghost Town, Wild Twin is a hallucinatory dream book of loss and loneliness, a book of wild images, a love song to cities.

With collage illustrations by the author.

Genres: Memoir

215 pages, Hardcover

Published September 24, 2024

Reviews

[Noah Ringrose · Rating 5 out of 5]

I find myself doing this again almost knowing that no one will read this but I feel inclined to say something as a record if not anything.

I found this book for 50p in a charity shop and only bought it cause it had a portrait of Rimbaud on the front and I am so glad I did.

This book had everything that I wanted, a real sense of freedom - Jeff Young striving to find purpose in a world that didn’t seem to give him any, I saw myself in a lot of his writing and I loved the references throughout - everything from Camus, Hawkwind, Genet, Kathy Acker, Chet Baker…I saw so many of my loves in his stories even though we are generations apart. This book reminded me of the walking through the streets of Paris on my own for the first time, it reminded me of how I feel walking home at night. The descriptions and prose were beautiful and tense, like you were sat in the pub with him after 4 beers. This book made me feel like a coward and it also made me feel seen. I was nervous, I laughed and I’ve just finished it on a bus home and couldn’t help myself shedding a few tears.

I’ve not been blown away by a book since I read “Miracle of the rose” by Jean Genet and I had given up on anything coming close, I am insanely grateful I stumbled across this and I would encourage anyone to read it.

[Alan Roberts · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mr Young is a spirit guide to the past. He understands how memories work and the nature of ghosts. There's nobody quite like him. One of my very favourite living authors. :) Again with Wild Twin, he has given his readers an engrossing work of art.

[Tom George · Rating 5 out of 5]

A poetic evocation of bohemian youth in Amsterdam and Paris. Liverpudlian Jeff Young hitch-hikes his way around Europe in the early 80s to hang out with ghosts of his cultural heroes. Naive, disorganised and skint, he gets into plenty of scrapes, but finally finds friendship and beauty amid the squats and street life of Amsterdam.

[Sophie Flint · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favourite books of this year. I found myself highlighting passages every few pages. He just gets me 😭

[Nick Cubs · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful ode to memory and how we interpret it in our lives. Jeff’s writing is beautiful. It’s a memoir that reads like a novel. A masterpiece.