Ready to follow Nick Hornsby and Helen Fielding as the next big thing from Cool Britannia to hit America is Ben Elton. Already known to a wide public television audience as the funnyman behindBlackadder, The Young Ones,andThe Thin Blue Line,Elton, author ofPopcorn, lights up the literary sky withBlast from the Past.
Part noir thriller, part hilarious send-up of the politics of extremism,Blast from the Pastis the new novel from English comedy phenomenon (stand-up, playwright, television writer, and author) Ben Elton--a name soon to be known in all circles once Joel Schumacherβs film of his bookPopcornreaches the silver screen.
In the early 80s, when Polly was a seventeen-year-old ideological peace protestor and Jack was a U.S. Army captain stationed at Englandβs Greenham Common, the two had a secret and very unlikely affair. No two people could have had more to argue about, save that they couldnβt live without each other, yet one day Jack came to the conclusion that he loved soldiering more than Polly and sacrificed their love to be a career army man.
Now, sixteen years later, Polly is a lonely thirty-something social services employee and Jack is a four-star general who has returned to Britain to find her, his only true love. With only one night to resolve their differences, and a knife-wielding stalker lurking in the shadows, for everyone concerned this will be a night like no other.
From the Hardcover edition. -------------------------------------- Proofed and corrected (including insertion of missing pages 56/57) 2006. No attempt made to reinstate any of the many italics appearing in the original paper copy. --------------------------------------