The story of a working-class homosexual dragging his way along the Boulevard of pick-ups and prostitution after a harsh childhood (‘The Spaniard hits me harder now, it’s only fair, I’m getting bigger and tougher.’). Life under the neons is a minimalist circle running from proletariat to prison to prostitution and the common thread is that there’s always someone bigger, richer or smarter than him pushing him one way or another. If you can stomach its unrelieved grit there is to be found here the genuine and desperate smell of the street and all the sudden highs or lows brought on by fate or stimulants.

‘At rue Béranger, I stagger up the stairs. I want a long night without any memories. I stretch out on the carpet, one last cocktail. Coma.’ p111