Friday's Forgotten Books: Suckers - Anne Billson

Friday’s Forgotten Books Suckers by Anne Billson. Anne Billson is a John Carpenter and Charles Willeford fan from Southport who writes brilliantly on film for The Guardian, GQ and oodles of other journals. She is the author of Spoilers – a fantastic and essential collection of film reviews. As well as being the best film writer since Pauline Kael she’s also a gem of a storyteller. Her first novel, Suckers, was one the most refreshing and downright entertaining British novels of the nineties and was shortlisted for Granta's 'Best Young British Novelists' list in 1993. ‘Bleeding London Dry’ was Suckers’ fab tag line and, indeed, the London of Suckers,was the Cool Britannia of the eighties, drowning in bright young things. Whole communities were being chewed up and spat out as chic Docklands tower blocks. The narrator, Dora Vale, is a 'creative consultant' - a typically vapid eighties job description –who visits the headquarters of the uber-voguish Bellini magazine only to discover that it only does its business at night... No less than Salma Rushdie described it as a satire on the eighties greed is good culture and he wasn’t far wrong but more than that it’s fun. A Molotov cocktail of Ealing Comedy, Hammer and even American Psycho, it’s the best way to spend your time in the company of yuppies- watch them suffer!