Nightingales - (Stories & Scenes) by Dominic Jay (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

A roman-a-clef set in 1994, Nightingales explores contrasting cultures and different social tribes, and follows a former nightclub hostess as her world is turned upside down.

It is 1994, the year of the OJ Simpson saga, Tony Blair's rise to the leadership of the Labour Party, and South Africa's first fully multi-racial elections. Nola Marks is a London nightclub hostess with an art history degree and itchy feet. Suddenly her world changes. She begins a new career with a fledgling publishing company, meets Lucian Freud, and finds herself adopted as his latest muse. Over the course of the following seven months, her professional and emotional worlds are turned upside down, as external forces impact in unexpected ways. Set ten years on from Tableaux, the author's debut novel, the narrative cuts between divergent national cultures and different social tribes. With photographs by Jamie Noise, Nightingales combines art and storytelling in a compelling hybrid form.

About the Author

Jamie Noise is an artist, photographer, and filmmaker whose distinctive style blends vintage aesthetics with vibrant contemporary glamour. Driven by a love of storytelling, his photographs weave intriguing narratives around a cast of strikingly beautiful but mysterious characters. Dominic Jay is a former arts journalist. His professional life gave him privileged access to people and places that are usually off limits. The material for this, his second novel, was collected over many years. Many of the scenes and characters are drawn from life. As he says, 'all writers are voyeurs'.