Kenneth Tindall Great Heads
284 pgs. | paper | Spring 2001

The “Great Heads” of this brilliant novel are the hip, restless, wandering world-tramps whose center of operations—although most of them are American—is Copenhagen, circa the 1960s. The novel is everywhere alive with movement and talk—streets, bars, coffeehouses, parties—and there is a flashing aura of recklessness about this milieu which subtly contributes to the tragedy of the love story that is at the center of the book.

In this turbulent world of dope, sex, rock music, and the ceaselessly drifting young, the major characters emerge: Chester Flynn, a blind master organist who has come to Denmark on a music grant; his wife, Brigit, a Danish girl whose arty specialty shoppe is a great success; Robert O. Gemshorn, Chester’s dearest friend of adolescence; Billie D. Stonecipher, a rock guitarist and composer who is the king of the young; and Ole Hansen, a suave school teacher who makes his living as a dealer in narcotics. The plot is simple, and what is most important is the way in which Mr. Tindall has worked it into a configuration of bittersweet power, his characters functioning as perfect extensions of and foils to each other; the prose is beautifully crafted, vibrant and joyous.

Kenneth Tindall was born in Los Angeles in 1937. In 1954, he joined the navy and in 1957, he moved to Europe. From 1961 to 1968, Mr. Tindall lived in Copenhagen, where he translated, worked for a music publisher and played folk music. In 1968 he moved briefly to the US and then back to Copenhagen where he presently lives and writes.

Available Spring 2001

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