New Charlie Six Review in Life After 50

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1960's COMING OF AGE NOVEL EXPLORES FAMILY DYSFUNCTION AND LOVE

Jan 19, 2012, 9:04 a.m.

Set in London during the transitional era between World War II and the sexual/musical revolution, Charlie Six, by Brixton Key, is a coming-of-age novel centered on a young boy – the title character—with a need to escape life's daily challenges. He is being raised by an odd lot of characters; a gangster father on the run from the law, a mother with an addiction to nightlife and alcohol, and many ‘uncles’ and other relatives still struggling to cope with the aftermath of the war.
That seven-year-old Charlie smokes and drinks a sip of alcohol can be both liberating and shocking. It’s the way things once were.
There’s an uncanny truth between the pages. Charlie Six is not your normal coming of age story. It’s a tough, funny, and brutal story of an era that has now gone, although Key wonders if it really ever existed.
“I made it my business throughout the novel to create an imaginary world. It was never my intention to bring back to life a time that’s past,” says Brixton. Like other authors he admires, he wanted to blur ‘the realities of time and space until it seemed like everyday life.’”
Charlie Six does not believe in politicians or religious superstitions. Being around his family has proved old dogmas to be obsolete. He’s completely contemporary in his disdain of the way things are. The novel touches a nerve in people who lived through the 1960’s and the decades close to it. But equally important, Charlie Six speaks to a younger generation who are intrigued by the influences that shaped their parents and grandparents.
Despite the dysfunctional nature of Charlie's family, they are driven by love; love for the world and for each other. It is this love that seeps into every crevice of Charlie's upbringing, and it is this love that helps Charlie to realize his full potential during his teenage years, and eventually get out of the London slums, using his passion for music as his propeller.
“Everyone I knew was hopped on amphetamine,” says Key of his childhood experience, “when we weren’t out watching British bands playing rhythm and blues or soul music we sat in each other’s bedrooms playing the records we’d copped from America. This is what Charlie Six is all about. I funneled my growing up through him.”
With optimism and incredible honesty Charlie Six explores:
The 1960's music scene in the U.K.
Dealing with drug and alcohol abuse
Love—the most important part of family
The power of imagination
Growing up during a cultural transition

About the Author
Brixton Key was born in Isleworth, England in the 1950s to a party-loving scallywag Mum and an errant Dad. Expelled from boarding school, which he attended on a scholarship, Brixton landed a gig with the British music weekly Melody Maker, writing under the name of Mark Plummer. He left for America one step ahead of Margaret Thatcher’s clampdown to manage Chris Isaak in the 1980s, guiding the pop idol and actor’s career as MTV started ruling the airwaves. In the 90's Brixton suffered a life-threatening brain aneurism. After he recovered, on the advice of his stepson he began writing fiction. Brixton lives with his girlfriend Josephine in a downtown San Francisco loft. In the late night hours he reads his favorite authors under skyscraper shadows, and works on his sequel of the Charlie Six trilogy, There Ain't No God Here. A lifelong insomniac he has little time for sleep. Who would when another story is lurking around every dark corner?

Website: www.whereischarliesix.com/
Charlie Six is available on Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com

One Hour At A Time with Mary Woods

Guest: Brixton Key    In a fascinating interview Brixton will discuss his unusual upbringing as well as the U.K. music scene in the 1960's, a time fueled by drugs and rock and roll.  He will talk about dysfunctional families, what it was like working for the British music weekly Melody Maker; becoming Chris Isaak's music manager in America, getting a second chance at life (his battle and recovery from heroin addiction as well as a life-threatening brain aneurism), and his semi-autobiographical book Charlie Six.  More info can be found on his website www.whereischarliesix.com Brixton Key was born in Isleworth, England in the 1950s to a party-loving Mum and an errant Dad. Expelled fromboarding school, which he attended on a scholarship, Brixton landed a gig with the British music weekly Melody Maker,writing under the name of Mark Plummer. He left for America to manage Chris Isaak in the 1980s, guiding the pop idol and actor's career as MTV started ruling the airwaves. In the 90's Brixton suffered a life-threatening brain aneurism. After he recovered, on the advice of his stepson he began writing fiction. Brixton lives with his girlfriend Josephine in a downtown San Francisco loft. In the late night hours he reads his favorite authors under skyscraper shadows, and works on his sequel of theCharlie Six trilogy, There Ain't No God Here. The purpose of these Internet podcasts is to increase awareness about recovery from substance use disorders and mental illness and to decrease the stigma and increase awareness of the discrimination that exists for people with substance use disorders and mental illness.  Our hope is that people will understand that recovery is a process and that there is treatment that is as effective as what is being used for other chronic illnesses.

WestBridge Community Services is a private non-profit organization dedicated to supporting the recovery of individuals and families that experience co-occurring mental illness and substance use disorders. All WestBridge programs utilize evidence-based treatments to help participants and families achieve their goals.