Books by John Roman Baker

Can love and hope survive in a climate of fear and betrayal?In the early months of 2020, Alex is determined to live his life elsewhere. In his confusion of escape and longing for another home, he accidentally meets Paul, a sleek and potentially dangerous man who threatens to tear apart the barriers to his heart; barriers built partly by the shadowy, beautiful figure of Luc and a truth that is difficult to face.Slowly, Alex and Paul realise a disaster is approaching that imperils not only them but the whole world.John Roman Baker is a British novelist, poet and playwright whose work shows an allegiance towards French literature and philosophy. His novels frequently centre on the cities which have been most influential in his life: Brighton and Paris. 2020 returns to these cities in a work that explores the significance of memory and friendship in times of uncertainty.

Through the 1980s and 90s, gay porn cinemas were an integral facet of the Paris gay scene. They were places of erotic fantasy and sexual reality, of refuge and fulfilment.Le Far West epitomises all those lost saloons of desire: outposts, as in the far west itself, of lonesome cowboys and the shoot-outs of their desires.Published, for the first time, in this strictly limited edition, Le Far West, which was written by John Roman Baker as a testimony to what he experienced and saw while living in Paris in 1988, mixes fact and fiction to create a startling and vivid impression of the time.

Brighton, 1961. Eighteen year old Greg is struggling to come to terms with his sexuality and to find his place in the world. He leaves home and embarks on a life driven more by chance than by choice. Through his encounters in Brighton he learns more about himself and starts to expand his horizons, but Nick remains his secret obsession. Soon he is on the run again, this time to London where he immerses himself in the vibrant scene developing in Chelsea. Clubs like the Gateways and Le Gigolo provide a kind of refuge, but homosexuality is still against the law and Greg finds he is always looking over his shoulder.

Brighton Darkness is a collection of seventeen stories that mostly relate to that amorphous place called Brighton and Hove: a city of dreams that enfolds both young and old and that must somehow always be returned to. Two youths in the 1950s experience a gay desire that begins in St Ann's Well Gardens and continues in the back row of the Astoria cinema. An ex-hustler meets a famous male movie star, long since thought to be dead. A birthday party doesn't quite turn out as planned, but has its own unexpected present of truth. A woman looks back upon her past in Regency Square, which is now almost beyond recognition to her. There is an encounter in the city between two Russians who try to come to terms with the tragic death of a young man they both loved. And snow falls in the city, hiding the unseen darkness beneath. ¿Roman Baker always keeps the narrative tension taut ... short stories that linger in the mind long after they've been read.¿ - Gscene Magazine John Roman Baker is a British poet, playwright and novelist who has lived and written in Paris, Amsterdam and Brighton.

Tim, living in Amsterdam and enduring a hard winter, finds he is suddenly pursued by two very different men. Both come out of the criminal and hard-edged margins of Amsterdam that Tim has for so many years frequented. Klaus is a German who sells death to those willing to pay for it. Radek is Polish, 19 years old, selling his innocence but holding out for love. In The Vicious Age, John Roman Baker explores, through the eyes of his protagonist Tim, the painful realities of life and of ageing in a city that has become more materialistic and vicious in its constant need to renew itself. Drugs and an ever-deepening cycle of sexual dependency provide temporary relief from this, but as his encounters leave him increasingly exposed to danger and violence, Tim knows he must break free and face the future without illusions, but not necessarily alone. John Roman Baker is a British poet, playwright and novelist who has lived and worked mainly in Paris, Amsterdam and Brighton.

The city is a place of polarization. Masculine is set against feminine, strength against weakness, existence against non-existence. A young man enters this world and begins a quest. It is a quest that takes him through streets and squares that morph and change locations. He encounters beings whose forms and natures also change and he is initiated in rituals of extreme sado-masochistic sexuality and violence. Rich in symbolic imagery THE SEA AND THE CITY cannot be defined or explained in simple terms. Depending on the reader it may be set in this world or a parallel world. The author does not wish to impose an interpretation. John Roman Baker lives in Amsterdam. He is the author of seventeen plays, three novels and several volumes of poetry.

Nicholas should be at ease with the sexual liberation of mid-1970's England, but finds he is more on its margins than at its centre. He is not taken in by the propaganda. He meets Peter who is more integrated into the spirit of the decade and they begin an obsessional relationship which soon spirals out of control. Nicholas's story is told from four perspectives. Whose version is to be believed or trusted? Where is the truth in their desires and where the reality? What indeed is reality? Only one thing is certain: Nicholas is cracking up and sooner or later he will hit the ground. Between sanity and madness, life and death, reality and unreality, there is No Fixed Ground.