Books by Neil Raffan

How can a gay love triangle and a straight love square be linked ... ask Kevin Jones, a twenty-five year old fumbling his way to sexual adulthood. London in the late 1980's and Kevin is a back office worker in The City, he has today's pop hits as well as those from yesteryear playing inside his head along with a very real dread of AIDS as he muddles through his own mire of delusion. Kevin, though at times feigning to be straight, is aided and abetted by Dave, his gay Svengali, as he seeks to make fellow City worker Eddie the replacement for his some time departed ex; whilst at the same time appearing to be one of his girl friend Nicky's three possible suitors. Whilst Eddie has to choose between John and Kevin, Nicky's choice is between Craig, Terry and Kevin ... confused? The straight lives of Kevin's brother and his cousin also encroach on Kevin's as he is egged on to come clean to Nicky even if he feels he is not able to fully come out.

Tokyo in the early 1990's ... the economy may well be in the beginnings of its decline but the foreign financial sector workers are still playing whoopee. Kevin Jones, one such worker, has finally come out to himself but to few others. Whilst his Svengali, Dave, is back in the UK will Kevin break free from his past of lost loves and denial of self. With the Tokyo gay-scene excluding open access to foreigners, how will Kevin's path towards coming out progress in this land where the 21st Century may have been reached technologically yet to Western eyes female emancipation appears at best as early 20th Century. Wonder at the beauty and contrasts of Japan through the eyes of a 30 something as he goes through life with his ears filled with popular music. Fellow Brit employee Kamal has skin colour to add to his gaijin make-up, thrown together by despising Front Office excesses will he and Kevin discover more in common ...

'We are all misfits. There is no such thing as normal. It is just that some are better than others at hiding their peculiarities.' So opens this latest collection from Neil Raffan. Whilst it may be too simplistic to say the content falls into two categories; either travelogues or displays of heart-on-sleeve; it contains the least fiction. The universal themes carry with them a sharp personal edge, however obvious the attempt to deflect it with humour. Travel to Mali or Zambia, Iowa, Mississippi and beyond.

Thirteen months in the life of the closest of friends. Ian Roberts and Ian Ceri are the epitome of best friends, from school days on to attendance at their home town university ... Aberdeen. Long suffering fans of the Dons a couple of years before the Alex Ferguson revolution the novel kicks off with Ian Roberts running away from home, university, his girlfriend; leaving his best friend behind. Whilst Ian Ceri's narrative handles the young men's common history as well as the downturn in their football club's fortunes Ian Roberts appears to be on the edge of a London now in transit from glam rock androgyny whilst he clings to music from the beginning of the decade. The era of Don Revie as the England manager, and as 1976 heads for its summer of summers Jaws and One flew over the cuckoo's nest are the films to see. Their mid-1970's correspondence highlights their differences as well as their shared past. Who is the cannibal, who is the bod?

Eighteen going on? Actually, Ian Roberts is eighteen and just going on - it is 1971 and with his school days about to end what next? Anything? Will he/won't he go to university? With his beloved Grandma Craig as a sounding board Ian's prose straddles the child/adult fault line - uncertain on which side to fall. Does he have to fall? A young Aberdonian's growing pains, what have Camus and Gide done to his mind? Despite himself this is a journey of self-discovery, accompanied, as in Cannibals eat bods, by Ian Ceri and Morag Kennedy.

Forty years of Neil Raffan's poems. Other than the infamous Up me nose this collection also contains Elizabeth, Panic in Bolton, Moroccan sleep, Who shot John Lennon? and Endless killing. Sharing with the usual suspects of subjects (family, life, love, death and sex) are a number of odes at attempted self-declaration. Enjoy!