A School of London: a trilogy

American abroad, glow of Europe at a distance, London in the foreground, a background of not quite settled Englishness - it is a mix as familiar as a scenario by Henry James, or a pop song from an unforgotten yesterday. In this triptych of the closing years of the 20th century, a world of bohemianism comes to life again, its dreams of glory, its subtle conflicts, its disintegrating passions, heedless ambitions and slouching towards evanescent spirituality.'The story is never straight reportage. The atmosphere is heightened, at times almost fantastic; conversations are glancing and elliptical, suggesting more than is spoken; people change partners and their perception of each other like characters in A Midsummer Night's Dream. But the world it portrays is wholly convincing within its terms of reference and one is caught up in its dramas from the first.' - Linda Kelly'Martin's work is imbued with an awareness of the difficulty of living a bohemian life in contemporary Europe, and the difficulty becomes his subject... Love, the biggest culprit, raises the spectre of bourgeois domesticity as often as it holds the promise of freedom.' - Times Literary Supplement