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From Private Worlds to the New Life: Tom Crewe in conversation with Jeremy Seabrook

,Barbican Library
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Join authors Tom Crewe and Jeremy Seabrook as they discuss their respective, recently published novel and memoir - The New Life and Private Worlds - about Queer relationships past and present.

In 1950s suburban England, a friendship bloomed between Jeremy Seabrook and Michael O'Neill - both gay men coming of age during a time when homosexuality was still a crime. Lyrical and candid, this is a tale of sexual identity, working-class history and family drama. A memoir of unparalleled authenticity, Private Worlds is an elegy for a doomed friendship.

Tom Crewe's debut novel, The New Life (Penguin, 2023), finds two men in Victorian London, John and Henry, as they decide to write a revolutionary book together, intended to challenge convention and the law; their relationship stalked by guilt and shame. Yet they share a vision of a better world, one that will expand possibilities for men and women everywhere.

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Tom Crewe

Tom Crewe was born in Middlesbrough in 1989. His first novel, The New Life, was published to wide acclaim in January, when he was also chosen as one of the Observer’s best new novelists of 2023. He is also part of Granta's influential 'novelists under 40' list for 2023. Since 2015, he has been an editor at the London Review of Books, to which he contributes essays on politics, art, history and fiction. 

Jeremy Seabrook

Jeremy Seabrook has been writing books on wide-ranging social, political and economic issues for over half a century. His articles have been featured in The Guardian, The Times and The Independent. He has written plays for stage, TV and the theatre, some in collaboration with his close friend, Michael O’Neill. His many books include Pauperland, The Song of the Shirt and Cut Out: Living Without Welfare.

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