Screenwriter and novelist, Sarah Lotz's 'hilarious, heartbreaking first novel', Pompidou Posse, published first in South Africa in 2008 by Penguin Books SA will now be available 'to a world-wide audience, newly edited and with an all new cover' thanks to Hodder & Stoughton. Scheduled to be published next month, here is a synopsis:
Paris is eternal. Art is love. Friendship is forever. Except when it isn't.
You're seventeen. One night, more or less by accident, you set fire to a garden shed. Naturally, you pack up and run off to Paris, certain you can make enough money off your art to get by. You're young, you're talented, you're full of life, and you have your best friend in all the world by your side.
What could possibly go wrong?
Indeed, what could? Pompidou Posse, is set in the late 80s and has been described as 'loosely autobiographical'. As Mandy J Watson writes in her review of the SA edition:
First edition cover. Published in 2008 by
Penguin Books SA
'What makes the book even more fascinating is that it is only a somewhat fictonalised tale as much of the story is a (from what I've heard often lighter) retelling of the experiences Lotz and a friend shared as homeless people in Paris in the 80s, after they fled England.'The book sounds amazing and I can't wait to read it. And here's a link to an excerpt of the first edition BooksLiveSA published a couple years ago. Also, here's Sarah Lotz sharing her feelings about her first novel with Rob Boffard:
'I was terrified. My first novel, POMPIDOU POSSE, was published in South Africa the first time around (Hodder is kindly re-releasing it this year). Far from being a global bestseller, it sold about twelve copies and gave me a taste of what it's like to fail as a writer - in this game, when you often need a thick skin, this wasn't necessarily a bad thing!'
