Helen Falconer

Primrose Hill

Faber & Faber, 1999.

It wasn't like being in London at all - not down in London where you couldn't see shit, but up here, closer to the sky, like we'd been living down a manhole and climbed up and pushed off the cover. You could imagine you were right out of it, maybe on a mountain top somewhere, real air and a sky you could see

Si just wants to hang out with 'the crowd on the hill, the peace and love types, all growing our hair...we were doing the hippy thing', and much of the action takes place on or around Primrose Hill. But his mate Danny has decided to kill his mother's junkie boyfriend, and needs Si's help; the summer of love is put on hold.