Looks and Smiles

First edition. 8vo. 220 pp. Black cloth, lettered in silver to spine. Jacket photograph by David Farrell, taken on the set of the eponymous film, directed by Ken Loach, and featuring Chris Menges's striking b/w cinematography. In competition for the Palme d'Or, it shared the Young Cinema Award at the 1981 Cannes Film Festival. The scarce casebound issue.

Spine ends pushed-in, dustwrapper lightly creased and rubbed to edges, else Fine.

Author's fifth novel. A gritty social commentary about teenagers growing up at the start of the Thatcher ascendancy in Sheffield. It was a time of a protracted and severe economic malaise for the city, one of whose manifestations was an acute juvenile unemployment rate giving way to a deep sense of hopelessness and despondency. "When bolder, gaudier stuff is long forgotten, Mr Hines' writing stays in the mind and nourishes it." –Sunday Telegraph