REVOLUTIONARIES by JACK BLADE – AN OVERVIEW

Revolutionaries is like ‘Clockwork Orange’ meets ‘Beverly Hills 90210’ with a slice of Dashiel Hammett, set in the mid seventies when the world is changing.

Revolutionaries is set around Central Scotland during the mid seventies when the British Social Culture is in the midst of metamorphosis – finally leaving the old pre-war values to embrace the transformed socio-economic reality of the future. The novel provides a glimpse of unusual teenage life within the backdrop of a fluctuating British culture.
The central story revolves around five friends [Jonn Harris, Mhic Palmer, Bill Rosser, Dave Macklin And Richard Storey] and set in Danbray, a small town about fifteen miles outside Glasgow [only the locations where these characters live are fictionalised – all other locations are factually based, accurately reflecting Scotland in context, geography, structure and orientation during this period.]

Beginning in November 1976 and running to May 1977, their lives and stories are reflected through a series of prosaic snapshots of events as they move from the domain of a violent school to the ugly realities of the real world.
A rich web of characters circulates around the five individuals as, progressively, a picture of their own individual youth culture gradually builds amidst the emotive background of ambition and anti establishment behaviour.

Music, cinema, television, fashion, products and styles are all faithfully followed and explored, giving an insight to an exciting period of social revolution.

Beginning with a hideously violent incident, the story introduces the five friends, their lives, loves, ambitions and their unwillingness to adhere to the expected destiny the society around them demands.
A series of varied events, locations, relationships, violence, gang culture, murder, corruption, mystery, comedy, sex, drugs and burning ambition, is the skeleton upon which their tale lies as the five central characters strive to make their lives, band and their music a success. Underlying all this is the story of the initial crime as well as a more significant incident which has taken place long before the story opens – an incident which has shaped some of the characters lives both knowingly and unknowingly.
This underlying tale of crime progressively builds, through a continuing set of seemingly unrelated characters and events that initially appear quite unconnected with the main characters lives, but that, in the end, finally binds everything cohesively together.

The structure of the novel begins simply, and almost innocuously, with short Chapters that mark the ‘Snapshot’ style used throughout, slowly expanding to incorporate more and more lives with lengthier, more diverse Chapters as the events effect and influence more and more of the characters – all undertaken in a chronological manner, following these individuals separate experiences but all playing a significantly homogenous part in the dual layered story. It is only by the last Chapter that the reader learns the answers to many of the questions that have been central core issues throughout the novel. The final Chapter provides a substantial resolution to the complex story but also leaves many new, unanswered questions that are the fundamental basis for the next novel in this trilogy.

This novel can be seen and enjoyed as a complete entity within itself but is actually only the first part of three about ‘The Outsiders’. [Although it must be stressed that the entire story, and all its complex subplots, is only fully apparent by the end of Part Three which finishes in winter 1978 - despite that each part can stand alone whilst still building a sophisticated web of lives and events running over approximately two years of these characters lives.]

THE OVERALL CONCEPT IS REFLECTED AS FOLLOWS :

PART ONE [Revolutionaries] NOVEMBER 1976 TO MAY 1977

PART TWO [Revolver] AUGUST 1977 TO FEB 1978

PART THREE [Revolutions] MARCH 1978 TO NOVEMBER 1978