Book Review: Anthony Camber – The Pink and the Grey

Undefinable and brilliant, The Pink and the Grey is a fantastic rework of an old idea – catch the corrupt douchebag. Written by Anthony Camber, we reviewed his first book, Til Undeath Do Us Part, earlier this year.

Set in a fake Cambridge College, St Paul’s, you are drawn into the corresponding worlds of Academia and Journalism by the book’s two protagonists Spencer Flowers and Conor Geraghty – Spencer is an academic who works at the college and who has a love of men and gin, while Conor is making a name for himself working at the Cambridge Bugle, a local newspaper. Their worlds are turned upside down with the arrival of Seb, a young man bent on revenge and whose vendetta that could take down the very college itself.

Corruption based homo-thriller is not really our preferred genre of storytelling, but you can’t help but laugh at the hilariousness of the writing. Whilst some of the plotlines are rather obvious and oblique, the idea of having a college which is known as being quote-unquote ‘the gay college’ at one of the biggest halls of academia in the world is certainly an entertaining one. Perhaps the most obvious of the references were the transvestite performers, and the way that the character of Cody attempted to seduce the Editor of the Bugle, despite the man being a homophobe and straight, whilst dressed as a woman.

This book is definitely the kind of comedy that should be performed – the visceral imagery should be picked up and put on stage or screen.

Despite its great comedic content, there are definitely places where the storyline drags and where the author has gone into minute detail about a meeting. Whether it is just us not being used to this type of fiction or what, we couldn’t tell you, but there were definitely times when we had to walk away from the Kindle for a good half hour.

The best thing that can be said about this latest offering from Anthony Camber is that it hints at what we’ve always suspected – those bastard CCTV cameras are in fact being watched by someone who reminds us of the Architect from The Matrix, and that he will send his flying monkeys if we step out of line. Ok so maybe not, but what he has done is fused reality with fiction marvellously to create a unique would that you can’t easily escape from. We suspect it was only by creating an environment based on fact that the fiction could really take hold.

Now we had best leave it there. Before the snow starts falling on us too.

You can now buy The Pink and the Grey from Amazon