Kicking

The story moves through the London and New York underground scenes of the 1970s and 1980s, following a circle of close friends as they navigate the uncertain thrills and hazards of that period. It opens in 1969, when Connie West first forms a bond with Mikey Stour during a Sunday outing to the overgrown, Romantic-era grounds of Highgate Cemetery. Over the following two decades their connection stays tangled, shaped by the friends and lovers around them. Among these is Iris, whose unpredictable life ends up unsettling theirs.

As Connie looks back, she comes to see that what a person lived through never fully disappears. It stays buried beneath the surface and then resurfaces, sometimes with a flash of comic insight. The novel offers a witty, psychologically sharp view of a lively community of artists and writers, along with drug addiction, the pull toward self-destruction, and the fierce loves and betrayals that permanently alter people.

Leslie Dick is also the author of Without Falling, a novel published by City Lights. She splits her time between London and Los Angeles and teaches at the California Institute of the Arts.