The Brown Bread Sonnets - Russell James

Seventy-two very prosy 'sonnets' tell the 'thin dark' (blackly comic) story of Clovis Beecham's struggles with ill health after an early retirement, his ambiguous affaire with an ambiguous woman, and his winning through to a kind of peace. Matters had come to a head when his wife moved out, disgusted by his ill temper, after which he experienced a fractured vertebra and a related cancer warning. Longing for escape from physical crises, he meets the fascinating Penelope in a newsagent. She tells of a mystical epiphany on the Isle of Wight that showed her how a positive mind can surmount a body's malaise. The tone is light and satirical, but along the way the text stylishly dramatises the common feeling - or strong illusion - that ageing is essentially the struggle between an enduring mind and a fading body, indeed the inescapable struggle itself between spirit and matter.

'Complete delight at the Brown Bread Sonnets. I've just read them right through and they've cheered me up no end. Clovis is spot-on, and the narrative sequence just flows on perfectly. Brilliant!'

Ian Patterson

'All this and his eye for vivid, telling details mark James Russell as a true story teller, and a true poet.'

Lee Harwood