Beatniks

At a party in Bedford in 1995, Mary meets Jack and Neal, a couple of "angel headed hipsters," and the town’s very own local "Beats." After a "Beat Happening" at the public library, she joins them for a chaotic road trip, first to the English seaside resort of Brighton, and then to Ameri-ca, where, as they drive to San Francisco, Jack’s dreams prove hard to live with. The London Guardian wrote in February 2002 of the "high praise won by Toby Litt, one of the most prolific of the newer generation of British novelists . . . the writer who brought you Beatniks, an ingenious English On The Road of the mid-1990s, [and] Corpsing, a successful raid on the manor of the crime thriller . . . Litt has a lot to show us."