Latest Release
Blurred Faces
Synopsis
‘I mean, it’s nothing really. An old face from the past.’
When two men meet on a dating app, it’s supposed to be a casual encounter between strangers. Jordan is only back in Edinburgh to visit his complicated family, and Davie is reeling from a painful breakup.
Yet Davie recognises Jordan as someone he knew long ago, when they were both closeted teenagers at the same school. Back then, Jordan was relentlessly bullied and Davie was one of the bullies. But Jordan doesn’t remember him at all.
Against the backdrop of a city steeped in memories, Davie and Jordan find themselves drawn together again and again. A fragile intimacy blossoms between them, but can anyone ever be free of their past?
Publisher Information
Buy Now — Blurred FacesPublisher: Fairlight Books
ISBN: 9781914148804
Number of pages: 288
Dimensions: 198 x 129 mm
Languages: English
Buy Online
Buy In-Store
- Golden Hare Books, Edinburgh
- The Portobello Bookshop, Edinburgh
- The Wedale Bookshop, Stow of Wedale
- Mount Florida Books, Glasgow
- Topping & Company, St Andrews
- Blackwell's, Edinburgh
Media Reviews
Blurred Faces
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Exquisite… tender and romantic and yet searing with gritty reality.
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A story of love and remembrance… evoked in rich imagery.
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An emotionally resonant tale of family dynamics and complex, fragile intimacies.
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I was quietly moved by Allan Radcliffe’s thoughtful, lovely story, steeped in vodka, bog-smell, and aging rain, about these wounded characters who tiptoe toward one another and risk the terrifying possibility of an un-haunted life. I want to believe they can do it.
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Allan Radcliffe’s sophomore effort is an intimate tale of two souls attempting to find themselves, as well as each other. Character-driven yet cinematic, Blurred Faces is tenderly romantic and achingly poignant with a sharp complexity in what could be a spare story. The prose has a breathlessness, like the characters are anticipating a fall. Buffeted by their families as well as the choices they’ve made on their own, in the end, the two lovers discover that maybe they’re not broken; maybe they’re just bruised.
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Gentle, anguished, warm, real and wonderful
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An impressive, Edinburgh-set novel ... Radcliffe has such mastery of his characters
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Radcliffe writes with an enviably economical and engaging style […] Blurred Faces is probably the most clearly Edinburgh-focussed novel I have read for a long time.
About Allan
Allan was born in Perth, Scotland, and now lives near Edinburgh. His writing has won the Allen Wright Award and the Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award. With an MA from the University of Glasgow, he works as an arts journalist and editor, and is currently a freelance theatre critic and feature writer.
His short stories have been published in anthologies including Out There, The Best Gay Short Stories and New Writing Scotland, and broadcast on BBC Radio 4.