God of Speed by Luke Davies
I will fly at last. I will unfold my wings. I will unpack my head. I will step back outside. One day I may even make love again. But one thing at a time. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.
Film mogul, aviator, addict, inventor, visionary, recluse, serial womanizer, political meddler: Howard Hughes was one of the strangest and most significant figures of the twentieth century. His obsessive-compulsive disorder would end up crippling and isolating him; in the end he self-medicated his way into oblivion.
It's a summer night in 1973, and holed up in his hotel penthouse in London, Hughes can't sleep. Tomorrow he takes control of an airplane for the first time in more than fifteen years. As the reclusive, drug-addled billionaire waits for the dawn, the shape and preoccupations of the times emerge from his ruined psyche; a world of oil, flight, money, movies, drugs, sex, power, greed, fear, yearning America.
Blackly funny, muscular and rhythmic, transcendent and debauched, God of Speed is a fever dream, a giant and extraordinary leap of the imagination into the fractured mind of a man who was both great, and greatly fallen.
Paperback | 304 pages
152 x 230mm | 380g
01 Apr 2008
Allen & Unwin
Sydney, Australia
1741143500
9781741143508
Condition: Very Good
A book that does not look new and has been read but is in excellent condition. Very minimal damage to the cover, including very minimal scuff marks along the edges. No missing or damaged pages, no creases or tears, and no underlining/highlighting of text or writing in the margins. Very minimal wear and tear.