GUY MANKOWSKI

I'm thrilled to share that my first novel since 2016 is being published internationally by Darkstroke / Crooked Cat Books in September; Emma Imrie was a Plath-obsessed, self-taught teenage musician dreaming of fame, from a remote village on the Isle of Wight. She found it too, briefly becoming a star of the nineties Camden music scene. But then she died in mysterious circumstances. In the aftermath of Emma’s death, her younger brother, Jeff, is forced by their parents to stay at the opulent home of childhood friends on the island. During a wild summer of beach parties and music, Jeff faces up to the challenges that come with young love, youthful ambition and unresolved grief. His sister’s prodigious advice from beyond the grave becomes the only weapon he has against an indifferent world. As well as the only place where the answers he craves might exist… "Dead Rock Stars" took a long time to write and I benefited from the input of lots of readers. On one level ...

I'm honoured to have just signed a contract with Zer0 Books- home to brilliant authors such as Mark Fisher and Laurie Penny- for my first non-fiction collection, 'Albion's Secret History- Snapshots of England’s Rebels and Outsiders'. This volume compiles snapshots of English pop culture’s rebels and outsiders- from Evelyn Waugh to PJ Harvey via The Long Blondes and The Libertines. By focusing on cultural figures who served to define England, this book looks at those who have really shaped Albion’s secret history- not just its oft-quoted official cultural history. By departing from the narrative that dutifully follows the Beatles, The Sex Pistols and Oasis and by instead penetrating the surface of England’s pop history (including the venues it was shaped in) this piece throws new light on ideas of Englishness. As well as music it draws from art, film, architecture and politics, showing the moments at which artists like Tricky and Goldfrapp altered our sense ...

Drawing from research into psycho-analysis, Tarot and numerology, this article took a long time to write but is now live in the excellent 3:AM Magazine... http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/cherubs-zeros-glass-children-swans-symbolism-in-lyrics-of-the-smashing-pumpkins/

'And the world outside this room has also assumed a familiar shape / The same events shuffled in a slightly different order / Each day /  Just like a modern shopping centre' I was surprised today to see that Pulp’s Different Class was about to turn twenty. Surprised, because it marked for me my entry into music. Since discovering that album I haven’t just found music a refuge. I’ve written music, reviewed it, and most recently have written about it, and this album, with its shabby mysticism and splenetic eviscerations of other peoples lives, was the start of all that. People talk of the glamorous, alien quality of Ziggy Stardust, and I think the most seductive visions in art are ones which we recognise, when we squint. The cover of Ziggy is part of its appeal because its recognisable- it could be the local town hall. It entrances us because we think that with the right attitude and makeup this album could usher us into a utopia for the night. We open the album and...

When my novel, How I Left The National Grid, was accepted for publication a scene that I considered important didn't make it into the book for contractual reasons. In it, the journalist Sam walks from the Hulme Estate, along the side of the motorway and into the heart of Manchester. It’s a perilous journey that I took myself on a wet Manchester afternoon to research this chapter. Two characters, both trying to ‘find’ the vanished singer Robert Wardner in their different ways, undertake a journey that takes them past the historical layers of the city. Their conversation covers topics as diverse as A Clockwork Orange,  Margaret  Thatcher, Brutalist architecture, the history of the synth and New Order. I’ve mentioned this scene in a few talks and lectures, and having had very kind feedback for it from some of the post-punk musicians I interviewed whilst working on the book I thought this might be the place for it- 13 The morning sky was the kind that Sam could im...