Only Lovers Left Alive Read online

  ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE

  by

  DAVE WALLIS

  With a new introduction by

  ANDREW TULLIS

  VALANCOURT BOOKS

  Only Lovers Left Alive by Dave Wallis

  First published in Great Britain by Anthony Blond in 1964

  First Valancourt Books edition 2015

  Reprinted from the first U.S. edition published by Dutton in 1964.

  Copyright © 1964 by Dave Wallis

  Introduction © 2015 by Andrew Tullis

  The moral rights of the author of the Introduction have been asserted.

  “Only Lovers Left Alive” is a registered trademark in the United Kingdom.

  Published by Valancourt Books, Richmond, Virginia

  http://www.valancourtbooks.com

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the copying, scanning, uploading, and/or electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitutes unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher.

  Cover photograph by Bruce Fleming. The Publisher is grateful for Mr. Fleming’s kind permission to reproduce it.

  INTRODUCTION: Kids Rule OK!

  As a rowdy grandfather of teen dystopian fiction, Only Lovers Left Alive continues to age disgracefully. Whilst the novel’s fame derives largely from its intriguing misadventures with the Rolling Stones, such disparate talents as musician Jim Mor­rison, graphic novelist Grant Morrison, and filmmaker Jim Jarmusch have also referenced the work over the years. However one suspects that its author, Dave Wallis, would have been surprised by his novel’s enduring cult appeal, especially after its having been out-of-print for more than three decades.

  The novel follows the exploits of the teenage “Seely Street Gang” as they fight for survival in a post-apocalyptic Sixties London. When the entire adult population commits suicide and civilisation collapses, the young are left to fend for themselves. As the country descends into a teenage wasteland of gang warfare, disease and famine, “Seely Street” are forced to escape north and face the challenges of wild nature. Although the mysterious suicides are never explained, it is hinted that the “oldies” have succumbed to a form of existential ennui that has yet to infect the younger generation.

  Only Lovers Left Alive was originally published in the aftermath of the Mods and Rockers battles of 1964. With its lurid subject matter, the novel could be interpreted as an attempt to exploit the contemporary media hysteria surrounding rampaging teenagers, but it’s likely that Wallis had more serious literary intentions. His first novel, the semi-autobiographical Tramstop by the Nile, was published in 1958, followed by A Girl with Class in 1959. However modest book sales meant that Wallis had to supplement his income through teaching English and French. Born in London in 1917, Wallis’s background was initially one of upper-middle class comfort. His family moved to Montreal after the First World War, but returned to England in much reduced circumstances after Wallis’s stock­broker father was hit by the Crash of 1929. Wallis’s own youthful rebellion appears to have taken the form of his joining the Young Communist League, much to his father’s consternation. Then, in 1940, Wallis enlisted with the Army Signal Corps, and for the remainder of the war he was stationed in Egypt. In his later years Wallis recalled a life-changing incident that occurred whilst on active service. “We were stood ‘at ease’ and a fatherly old regular sergeant-­major came out. He said, ‘Traffic’s very chaotic in Cairo – so, if you do happen to knock down a wog, stop, back over him and finish him off. It saves a lot of form filling.’ ” An indignant Wallis forever considered that “fatherly” sergeant-major and his prejudices to be the real “face of the enemy”.

  By the 1960s Wallis had moved out of London to work on his third novel. It was amongst left-wing artistic circles in Essex that Wallis befriended Australian writer Jack Lindsay. Lindsay’s Dionysian 1926 poem “Earth Reborn” would directly inspire the title of Only Lovers Left Alive. Another Lindsay social connection, with Anthony Blond, would prove fruitful when Wallis’s­ established publisher rejected his manuscript. Blond’s independent publishing house stepped into the breach, and the novel became Wallis’s biggest financial success, with American and French editions and several paperback re-issues.

  Blond even sold the film rights to Associated British Pictures ahead of first publication in June 1964. By August 1965 Nicholas Ray (Rebel Without a Cause) was attached to direct, working from a script by Gillian Freeman (The Leather Boys). Simultaneously, the Rolling Stones’ management team of Allen Klein and Andrew Loog-­Oldham were searching for a project that would launch their band as cinematic rivals to the Beatles. Loog-­Oldham proposed A Clockwork Orange but, upon discovering that the screen rights were unavailable, Klein secured Only Lovers Left Alive as a suitably “bad boy” alternative. In May 1966 the music press announced that Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall (Billy Liar), were to write a new script, and that the Stones would record seven songs for the soundtrack. However after Nicholas Ray abandoned the project, and the script stalled, the film became mired in legal issues. Wallis, who was in France at this point, had news of the Stones circus relayed to him by his second wife. She was reported to have said, “I don’t see it as a serious subject with those people in it.” Apparently Wallis shared his wife’s opinion. By the summer of 1967 Jagger and Richards were embroiled in the notorious “Redlands” drugs trial, and Waterhouse and Hall were pursuing Klein for their unpaid writing fees. The Stones quietly dropped the tantalising project and, to this day, the novel remains unfilmed.

  Wallis maintained a peripatetic lifestyle during the remainder of the Sixties. After touring Europe, South America and Canada, he returned to England to teach in Colchester. He would publish only one further novel, Bad Luck Girl in 1971, and, apart from occasional contributions for the Morning Star newspaper, Wallis’s literary output diminished. He subsequently developed Par­kin­son’s disease, and died in 1990.

  Upon the novel’s initial publication Wallis felt stung by press criticisms for his alleged portrayal of adolescents as nihilist hoodlums. In actual fact if one looks beyond the unsettling violence, there lies a sympathetic, and ultimately optimistic, depiction of teenage lives. The novel’s latter descriptions of bucolic self-­sufficiency, with an implied rejection of the industrial revolution, also reveal Wallis’s underlying Socialist agenda. The Situationist magazine Heatwave recognised this surprising subtext when it wrote in a prophetic 1966 review that the novel “. . . may well turn out to be of seminal importance to the new revolutionism, its ideology, its mythology and its folklore.” This suggests that the novel’s political idealism has also played a significant role in creating its cult appeal.

  The novel has certainly earned a reputation for agitating disaffected teens and radical intellectuals alike but, at over half a century old, will Wallis’s work provoke a new generation of followers? Discover for yourself, by seizing an opportunity to read this latest edition of Only Lovers Left Alive. The revolution, and the novel, is yours!

  Andrew Tullis

  2015

  Andrew Tullis is a Scottish writer and filmmaker.

  If all men died at forty-five

  Save poets and musicians,

  And only lovers were left alive

  To throng their exhibitions . . .

  Jack Lindsay

  BOOK ONE: Everybody’s Doing It

  1

  “So, in any average year about five thousand inhabitants of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland commit suicide,” said Mr. Oliver to his class half an hour be
­fore he killed himself. He laid on the desk a copy of the Annual Abstract of Statistics stamped, “Seely Estate Compre­hensive School. NOT TO BE REMOVED FROM LIBRARY.” The disclosure fell as flatly as the rain outside. The boys and girls of the upper sixth continued to regard him in a politely jaded fashion. “Rather an interesting figure,” said Mr. Oliver brightly. His left shoe lace had broken and in order to move he was obliged to curl up his toes. “Rather an interesting figure,” he repeated. He was about to take a slight step forward to­wards the front row of desks but remembered the shoe and leaned his thin body forward instead.

  Kathy Williams raised her head. The blonde bubble of her hair construction quivered slightly. She uncrossed her long and shapely legs in a manner disturbing to the young men in the room who even fancied that they could hear the faint hiss of her nylons rubbing together.

  “Why isn’t it ever more or less?” she asked, “five hundred or five million?”

  “Or only five,” said a boy who was experimenting with a new, very deep tone of voice.

  “That’s just it, you see?” said Mr. Oliver. “That’s just what’s so fascinating about this sort of thing. No one really knows, all anyone can say is that the social pressures, shall we call them? are just sufficient to produce so many suicides.” One or two pairs of eyes were quickening and preliminary throat clearing began. “Oh, I’ve no doubt that, given all the data, any psychologist could give one quite a convincing explanation for each individual case. But as to why there are just so many cases he could say no more than you or I. But there, now it’s your turn. . . .”

  Perhaps he had finished too quickly. The prospect of dis­cussing the final action of a lot of nut-cases with a prize nut-case himself controlling the debate did not draw them. Kathy Williams had placed herself briefly in the enemy camp by her show of interest and now felt sorry for old Olly. She glanced at Robert Sendell, one of the more amenable and perceptive but most pimply of her swains.

  He licked his lips and dutifully stammered, “Wh – what ages are they mostly, sir? I mean are they young? I mean . . . ?”

  He blushed and stopped as the others tittered and two turned round and mimed the pulling of a revolver against their temples.

  “No, I’m afraid, the figures aren’t broken down by ages here,” said Mr. Oliver. “I don’t suppose there are many young people. One sees reports of undergraduates, of course, and then there are always those sad cases of prematurely broken hearts. However, I really brought this along because of this report in today’s Times, did you see it?” He went on without waiting for an answer, “ ‘The annual Report of the Ministry of Health is expected to provide plain sailing for the Minister this week, though two back-­benchers have questions down con­cerning the slight increase in the suicide rate in some areas. They may be expected to link this sad tendency with their attack on the Government’s housing policy, but no formal motion is expected. The Leader of the Opposition is known not to favour the making of political capital out of the deaths of these unfortunate people and a good many more will have to take the Roman way before his attitude is likely to alter. . . .’ Why ‘Roman way’, anybody?” asked Mr. Oliver, breaking off and gazing cheerfully about without meeting any particular eye.

  Nobody responded. A twist of rain whimpered against the wide windows and swirled down to wrap itself, as a grey tran­sparency, across the slate roofs and matchbox yards far below. They all glanced after the gust, and then back into the reassurance of the classroom.

  “Because the Romans approved of suicide,” said the deep-voiced boy.

  “Well, I’m not sure about ‘approved’,” said Mr. Oliver. “Though they certainly didn’t disapprove. It was regarded as a man’s right. With the coming of Christianity, of course. . . .”

  The discussion continued in a desultory fashion for some time until a high-pitched clangour, electronically amplified along the miles of corridors, beat at the glass-panelled door. “Saved by the bell,” remarked a tall youth in a loud voice and, as if to apologise, the remainder said, “Goodnight, sir,” very civilly.

  The security of an evening of routine work and the salve of habit beckoned to Mr. Oliver but he was now in a momentary no-man’s land of time. Curling his toes uncomfortably to hold his shoe he crossed to the high window and gazed over the featureless outer London conurbation. The children’s con­scious courtesy had served only to jab the bruise of fail­ure. The debate continued in a part of his mind. It was down there that the answers lay and not up here among the aca­demic abstractions. The children had sensed this, with their instinctive honesty and feeling for reality. What was he doing slaving in this examination factory? What could be put into the minds of young people which was of the slightest real value to them?

  “Very little is needed to destroy a man; he needs only the conviction that his work is useless,” Dostoievsky had written.

  Another twenty or so years of this, perhaps a few years on pension, mooning about, and then ill-health, some pain, the humiliations of hospital, and death. Why bother to wait?

  “Come, you are tired and inclined to dramatise things,” he told himself, but, at once, a part of his mind replied, “Bill Oliver, there is no aspect of your life from which you derive any satisfaction, nor ever will be.”

  This wouldn’t do! The room was stuffy. To fight back, that was the thing. First, a breath of fresh air, then a brisk walk down to his own form room, a cup of tea and a chat with old Staines. Action, even of the most trivial and familiar kind, would soon dispel this black mood.

  He opened the window and for a moment became only more conscious, by contrast, of the stale air of the room behind him, twice-breathed and full of radiator-heated chalk-dust, and of the slight, familiar emanation from his own middle-­aged body. The rain whipped at his face and he leaned out slightly towards the storm as if into the pleasure of Spring sun­light. Winter dusk had fallen and lights from the windows gleamed coldly on the wet asphalt sixty feet below.

  “Poor Billy, he’s tired, he’s feeling a tired boy . . .” his own voice sounded in a comfortingly childish whimper. It seemed he had become cold very quickly for his whole body was trem­bling. “You knew all along this wasn’t like the other times,” another self advised him. It became no longer pos­sible to be certain which words he was speaking aloud. “All thought is accompanied by imperceptible movements of the epi­glotis,” thought what was left of schoolmaster Oliver. Yet if the move­ments are imperceptible who perceives them? That scored one on them! – on the clever logicians and scien­tists who could tell you all about every process of life and noth­ing about its purpose. Vaguely the point seemed to be scored against the Minister of Education, the teacher’s salary structure, troublesome classes and everyone who had suc­ceeded in life where he had failed. “Poor Billy, he’s cold,” snivelled a ventriloquist seemingly from somewhere above his left shoulder. The steel draught strip of the sill scraped his shins. “Don’t think about it,” commanded a brisk voice rather like his own. “Poor Billy, he’s falling,” whined someone falling nearby.

  The building appeared to tip on end and then to slide and topple over. Through the fifth floor windows he glimpsed Kathy Williams holding court in the prefects’ room. An in­verted glance at Miss Pearce’s classroom followed. She was making some announcement and two boys at the back were scuffling about and not listening. He felt a sudden longing to be back on the inside, a part of warm, pressing life. Above the whistle of the wind and the strange, self-pitying whining he thought, “You wouldn’t’ve imagined there’d be time to take it all in.”

  The frosted glass of the cloakrooms sailed upwards past him. Nearly there! “You’ve done it this time, you fool,” said a voice, quite recognisably his own. And then all the voices screamed in fear at once. An explosion, too great to be fully comprehended, took place inside his head. He had time to think, “an odd effect, the blow is external after all.” At once the very deepest and quietest of black velvet cushions pressed down his eyes. It was neither restful nor fright
ening, but only supremely indifferent and quite final.

  The rain washed the blood clear and the first silenced arri­vals saw the fat convolutions of the brain shining and mottled like grey marble. One shoe had come off and was later found at a surprising distance from the body.

  It made it like some special evening – Chris Barber play­ing at the Palais or something like that. Everyone started calling on everyone else before “Tonight” faded out off the telly screens or mum started on about helping with the drying up and putting away.

  In accordance with a precept, far stricter than any their dis­gusted elders could have devised, girls might call on girl-­friends, boys on either girl-friends or boys, but no girl might call first on a boy. This code had then to be adapted to fit what was known of family circumstances, homework com­mitments, times of finishing work of those children who had left at fifteen, and so on.

  Inside the hour the cliques and gangs and groups met in the caffs and coffee bars of the area. A certain self-consciously raffish element stood around the jukebox in the Tropic Night. In casual rejection of the findings of sociologists, psychological-educationists and educational-psychologists, the clan here was composed of the two scholastic extremes, whom the theor­ists had allegedly separated by high walls of subject­ive prejudice. The very worst of the truanting, semi-criminal fourth-year leavers (habitually labelled as “less-able children”, which they were – except of course at knocking off motor-bikes and pinching stuff from Wooly’s) clubbed together with the G.C.E. stream intellectuals. The two groups formed a natural aris­tocracy of brains and daring and both – in their own ways – lived only to defeat tutelage. Once out of school uniform height of hair style and tightness of jeans was what mattered, not scholastic ability. The two disparate groups were, for a year or so of their lives, joined by mutual respect.