Mr. Clive und Mr. Page.

Neil Bartlett's The House on Brooke Street is a wonderfully written look at the repressive 1950's in Britain. It has the erotic charge and the creepy paranoid (with good reason) fear mixed in equal measures to make this novel feel vivid and authentic. The unnamed lead chararcter takes the reader through his encounters and furtive loves through the decades to when he writes it all down in 1956 in a very compulsive manner that... Read Full Review

You know what I'm going to say don't you Mr Bartlett. That the book glows in memory. As dramatic story. Dead bodies all over, stairs to be climbed, and more. But also the aesthetic-and-the-psychological. Organic form's theme with repetitions all over. The early infatuation appearing, submerging, resurfacing all one's life long....And history too. The days of the cosmic-sized closet, "over now" supposedly right Mr Bartlett,... Read Full Review

Neil Bartlett achieves the power to hypnotise the reader with this book. If your ideal reading experience is one where the book makes you forget where you are and what time it is,buy this book. It is almost impossible to describe the effect of reading "The House on Brooke Street" (published also under the alternative title "Mr Clive and Mr Page"). The diary extracts of the male protaganist, Mr Page, a lower class shop... Read Full Review

Bartlett has made huge literary leaps and bounds since "Ready to Catch Him." "The House on Brooke Street" (called "Mr. Clive & Mr. Page" in the UK) is a psychologically realistic first-person account of a homosexual man in early 20th century London trying to exist with English dignity while fulfilling his "unspeakably" real-human desires.A compelling psychological profile emerges starting with an obscure (factual)... Read Full Review

This book haunted me for months. It is a novel of grief, and of courage. Its non-linear form may disconcert naive readers, but is ultimately rewarding. It is not a light read, and not a "happy-ever-after," but definitely not depressing. Besides being a love story, and a mystery, it is a vivid reminder of the oppression that for too long has been inflicted on anyone outside the heterosexual majority. Reading this novel... Read Full Review