Stroll On

"What a drag it is getting old" was one of the few things that Belmont Thom and his wife Tuppence agreed on. With a nod to Sophocles and to Homer and with a great big genuflecting thanks-for-the-idea to the late Peter Tinniswood (who appears in the piece) Stroll On tells this couple's story. The narrative is a hybrid of two kinds: 'poem-prose' (as opposed to a prose poem) and magic-realism.  

'By turns funny, brilliant, sharp, savage, and surprising, this novella in poem-prose is compulsively readable and intellectually sustaining, as well as being a terrific feat of imagination and linguistic legerdemain. In Stroll On James Russell has invented the perfect form for his good-humouredly caustic outlook on things. All human life is there. Even Alma Cogan'.

- Ian Patterson

'I devoured Stroll On with relish (and a side order of quadrupley-fried sweet potatoes). It's very clever and very funny (Neither/Do orgasms last long but they remain popular). Everyone who's worth it should read it'.

- Andy Mayer

'All this and his eye for telling details make James Russell a true story teller and a true poet'.

- Lee Harwood