The 1980s saw a massive resurgence in London literature. The key figure of this movement is Iain Sinclair, who through the ’90s, mainly thanks to his dystopian novel Downriver (1991) and the non-fiction tome Lights Out for the Territory: 9 Excursions in the Secret History of London (1997), became something like a celebrity – folks listened to what he said, with many a forgotten writer owing his second life to his ever-ironic edicts.
Sinclair and Petit were made for each other: two masters of intellectual gallivanting and meandering on an unending quest for echoes of people lost to time which they hear at the sometimes unlikeliest of places. On their short maiden walk together, the tv piece The Cardinal and the Corpse, comic book god Alan Moore sends them looking for a 19th century grimoire, resulting in meetings with the likes of crime fiction master Robin Cook (aka Derek Raymond), gangland celebrity Tony Lambrianou, and several rare book dealers.
For their longer Science Fiction documentary about culture’s end, Asylum, they surrounded themselves with ao. poet extraordinaire Edward Dorn, writer-editor-musician Michael Moorcock, and author James Sallis of more recent Drive-fame. A mind-blowing double bill of intellectual ecstasy!
Olaf Möller
FILMS
The Cardinal and the Corpse (Great Britain, Canada, 1992)
Asylum (Great Britain, 2000)