M HKA Ensembles

Book, 18 x 11 cm, 376 p, publisher: Amsterdam: True True True, language: English, ISBN 9789490006906.

Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp (Inv. no. B 2025/465).

Literary synopsis The year IS 2009. Gangs of children, some as young as ten, are slowly roasting puppies over bonfires. To be alive is unrelenting and grim. Pyramid schemesters, balloon boys, gender-row runners. Pop-up brothels in industrial units. Fish nibbling at feet. Facemasks on the street. Pandemic after pandemic. New and more deadly strains keep coming and a sneeze on the tube is now a potential death sentence. ENOUGH. Because Alex ‘Abs’ Brenchley is back – and this is his last goodbye. Picking up straight after Alone, Desperate and Going Nowhere, he returns exhausted, rebarbative, defeated. And impotent. A pact is made: if life remains so desperately miserable, Abs will get off this melancholy-go-round once and for all. But his luck and his London are about to change, following a chance meeting with Ga— No to spoilers: *Jonny on a Chorizo* is a book of surprise and adventure. Carrying the reader on a joyous ride through London – its pearly queens, crushed dreams, bashment, blue jeans, scenes of romance in Crowlands – towards a heartfelt climax. Une fin véritable to a trilogy which began with the publication of Silk Handkerchiefs in 2009. So let’s bump uglies, dance about the Maypole and have one last night at the St Moritz, because this is it: *Jonny on a Chorizo* is the end for Abs. Vivat Regina! Relation of the novel to the artist’s practice Paul Haworth used to try to be more articulate about my art practice – about how all the bits connect. When he was young he liked to paint and to write and he has carried on with this. There is still a tension: of what you should be doing. But for Haworth it is an outdated notion – of the painter’s painter etc. For better or worse, today we are all artist as critic as curator as writer... These ideas came about slowly and accidentally through stories he wrote for radio shows at university, YouTube films (which are ongoing: http://www.youtube.com/silkhandkerchiefs) and performances. In 2007 Haworth started a MySpace page: the idea was to tell a story through the photos, layout, blogs, and profile music. That summer he lived with Sam de Groot, who had just published his first book through TRUE TRUE TRUE and he liked the writing but MySpace and its design was anathema to him so he said he would publish it if Haworth made it into a book, which felt like a challenge to him. The writing has found its right place and direction. One of the things which interests Haworth in art – although in his own words, he ”certainly does get it wrong, often” – is finding the right place for an idea: painting, book, T-shirt, rap, poem, evening. [Novel website](http://truetruetrue.org/#jonny)