Senseless — Paul Golding

Set against the backdrop of 1980s London, with its spangled haunts and limitless indulgence, Senseless chronicles, through the jaded faculties of its narrator, a world which veers from dancing to desiring, from laughter to disaster, from recreational drugs to prescribed ones, and back. At the core of the story lie George's two principal relationships - with his brother, Kelly, whom he cannot seem to love, and with his best friend, Matthew, whom he loves like a true brother. Together, George and Matthew confront shame and ignorance with indomitable spirit and dignity. This remarkable novel is at once a defiant elegy for a vanished decade and a love story. Delivered with brutal elegance, Paul Golding's narrative is more than a shoring up against loss. It is a search for sense itself.