Address Book

By: Neil Bartlett

Narrated by: Neil Bartlett

Address Book is the new work of fiction by the Costa-shortlisted author of Skin Lane. Neil Bartlett’s cycle of stories takes us to seven very different times and situations: from a new millennium civil partnership celebration to erotic obsession in a Victorian tenement, from a council-flat bedroom at the height of the AIDS crisis to a doctor’s living-room in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic, they lead us through decades of change to discover hope in the strangest of places.

Neil says, "Every place I’ve ever slept in, I’ve always wondered about what went on at that address before I moved in. To write this book, I went back to some significant places in my own life and let the walls talk to me. The result of that listening is this new cycle of stories."

Neil Bartlett was born in 1958. He grew up in Chichester, West Sussex, and now lives in Worthing and London with his partner of thirty-one years, author and archivist James Gardiner.

He is the author of novels Mr. Clive and Mr. Page (1996), shortlisted for the Whitbread Novel Award, and published in the US under the title The House on Brooke Street; Ready To Catch Him Should He Fall (1990); and Who Was That Man? A Present for Mr. Oscar Wilde (1988), a ground-breaking study which places Oscar Wilde in a wider gay historical and cultural context. This book won the Capital Gay Book of the Year Award. His most recent novels are Skin Lane (2007), shortlisted for the 2007 Costa Novel Award, and The Disappearance Boy (2014). He has also written several short stories.

©2022 SAGA Egmont (P)2022 SAGA Egmont

Critic reviews

Bartlett is a pioneer on and off the page and we are lucky to have him telling our stories.
-- Damian Burr

One of England’s finest writers.
-- Edmund White

SO SO GOOD

Oh, this was such a lovely book. I listened to the audio, which is narrated by Bartlett, and it was so, so good. He’s a gifted narrator and hearing him narrate these stories really brought them to a whole other level. Highly recommend the audio.

This is a collection of seven short stories and they are based on the places that people live. What a great way to theme a book. They take place during different times (as far back as the 1870s and as recently as present day) and the way that Bartlett is able to clearly express the time period just in the way that he writes is incredible.

These seven stories look at the lives of a variety of queer people; from a closeted queer teen who ends up having a casual relationship with a man for decades, until the other dies of aids, to the teacher who becomes intensely infatuated with a young man and tries to paint him (not one of his students), these are glimpses into all sorts of lives. Most of the stories are bittersweet, but they feel so very real, like they could have been written about your neighbour.

This is only the second Neil Bartlett book that I’ve read, but I am eager to read more!