STRANDED IN THE FUTURE

Hitchcocks second memoir explores the formation of his seminal 1970s band the Soft Boys, and the obsessions that fuelled his early creative output

British singer-songwriter Hitchcock wistfully reflects on boarding school and the music that shaped him in this captivating chronicle of the year he credits with sculpting his artistic sensibility . . . Readers need not be fans of Hitchcocks music to find this enchanting. ―Publishers Weekly, on 1967

Memoirists rarely begin their work with a stroke of genuine inspiration, and Robyn Hitchcocks ingenious idea to limit his account of his life to the titular year gives this sharp, funny, finely written book an unusually keen, wistful intensity without sacrificing its sense of the breathtaking sweep of time. I absolutely adored every line of 1967 and every moment I spent reading it. ―Michael Chabon, author of Telegraph Avenue, on 1967

STRANDED IN THE FUTURE is a kind of dystopian self-portrait. Its about obsession, and obsessive behaviour. Spanning from 1968 to 1978, it takes in the mythology surrounding Pink Floyds Syd Barrett (though it doesnt name him) and hinges on Robyn Hitchcocks teenage girlfriend (she isnt named either). The book explores the way that Hitchcock, in his own head, linked these two figures to each other, although they never actually met.

On the way, the story mines the incremental hangover of the 1970s as Hitchcock begins to play live, teaches himself to write songs, and eventually forms the Soft Boys. Theres a side order of trolleybuses too! Hitchcocks beautiful prose will resonate far beyond the fans of his music, and build on the literary following he established with his first book, 1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left.