Black Cradle

4/5 ( ratings)

"i don’t even know when it happened but somewhere along the line i just sat down completely burned out numb to new sensations and watched all my dreams float away day in day out night after night sitting in the same bars i’ve become just some burned out husk with all my memories of lost loves and my cigarettes alone with my regrets existing out of sync with the rest of the world"
[u.v. ray, Black Cradle]

It’s Birmingham, England in 1986 and Billy Zero has just walked out the hospital after trying to kill himself at the age of twenty-three. Amid ceaseless drinking in seedy nightclubs, backstreet bars, drug- fuelled parties and long, amphetamine charged nights punctured by his sense of demented loneliness, Billy Zero is sifting through the pieces of his broken life, compulsively searching for love and cheap thrills in an effort to assuage his feelings of alienation.

With its frenetic and chopped-up narrative, ‘Black Cradle’ backtracks the grotesque personal life of Billy and his freakshow of bored and bewildered friends - fusing together the grim omens of his rootless childhood and the brutal events leading up to his suicide attempt.

Nominated for a Saboteur Award in 2016, u.v. ray's 'Black Cradle' has drawn comparisons to William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac and Tommy Trantino. The story reels along at a dizzying pace, with most readers finishing it in one sitting.

"[Black Cradle] will give you an insight into the sometimes wretched, sometimes beautiful aspects of existence. So hold onto it with your life. Memorise it. The likelihood is you may never get another chance to experience the like of it again."
--- David Noone