"Nothing Purple Nothing Black is an unusual, and unusually promising first novel. It is an intriguing, topical story, and Paul Crawford tells it with passion, wit and a boldly metaphorical style." David LodgeAn intriguing debut novel that deserves a closer look. The lives of two seemingly disparate characters are fascinatingly juxtaposed in this confident debut novel: one is a Roman Catholic bishop on the run from his diocese and the Church; the other, an ex-mental patient on the street, haunted by voices and under the command of sinister beings visible only to him. When the tramp prevents the bishop from catching a train to an uncertain freedom, and offers shelter and a bolt-hole, the pair are set on an inextricable course that can only lead to a tragic climax.With an intricate and masterly narrative, Nothing Purple, Nothing Black casts the reader into a world where the old certainties of order, faith and morality are cast away.'.I really enjoyed it.
it is very well plotted.it is humane and somehow tender'Sara Maitland 'Three bizarre lives become intertwined in this strange and intriguing tale: Harvey, a bishop with carnal yearnings, Crystal, a psychotic tramp, and Olwyn, the object of Harvey's yearning. Cleverly told with some touches of black humour, an unexpected finale and not a moment of boredom - I found it a great read.' Rula Lenska 'Nothing Purple, Nothing Black draws you in and holds you suspended. A psychologically powerful study.' Roy Porter 'Paul Crawford has written with clarity and chastity about the anguish of institutional celibacy.The desperate loneliness of the isolated priest is conveyed with Greene-like insight. A parallel theme is the alienation of the insane.
Delusions, hallucinations and compulsions are vividly portrayed. There is no idealisation of the deranged - madness and its expectations are depicted with an insider's knowledge.' Dr Maurice Lipsedge 'Written with wit and a strong feeling for his protagonists. Crawford's fictional debut is impressive, and his depiction of the "mad and the sane" sharing "the same bathwater of life" lingers in the mind long after you turn the final page.'Paul Sayer'No other novel explores the painful dilemmas of the vow of chastity as this one does. Anyone who wants to know about the state of the Catholic Church, both from inside and out, must read Nothing Purple, Nothing Black.'Theodore Dalrymple/Anthony Daniels'This is a very powerful and touching novel in which the two worlds of the church and the laity are so well portrayed and poetically united. Crawford merges Graham Greene and Patrick Hamilton into the best of both - an obsessive internal landscape set against a murky dusk of a deadly town and a railway station going no-where.
' Stephen Lowe.