SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 10:00 AM – 2:00 PM
MARINA NEARY
WYNFIELD’S KINGDOM
Just Books
Just Books is pleased to welcome Marina Julia Neary, an award-winning historical essayist, multilingual arts & entertainment journalist, published poet, playwright, actress, dancer and choreographer, as she introduces her first novel Wynfield’s Kingdom (Fireship Press, $29.95).
Welcome to 1830s Bermondsey, London’s most notorious slum, a land of gang wars, freak shows and boxing matches. Dr. Grant, a disgraced physician, adopts Wynfield, a ten-year old thief savagely battered by the gang leader for insubordination. The boy grows up to be a slender, idealistic opium addict who worships Victor Hugo. By day he steals and resells guns from a weapons factory. By night he amuses filthy crowds with his adolescent girlfriend, a fragile witch with wolfish eyes. Their tragicomic idyll ends when Wynfield falls under the spell of an elusive benefactress and leaves his bohemian, semi-criminal circle to follow her to Westminster. There, in the company of blue-blooded outcasts, he learns the secret of his origin and the role he is destined to play in the history of England. Invoking the ghosts of English anarchists, Guy Fawkes and Oliver Cromwell, Wynfield enters the world’s biggest tavern – the Parliament, where he meets the most ruthless boy gang in the world – the British aristocracy. Using the mixture of chemicals, satire and horror, Wynfield stages an unforgettable performance and subdues the ruling class – if only for one day.
