Dirty White Boy

Is it appropriate to speak to television personalities when they’re buying underwear? How should you react when a transsexual wants to show you her latest surgery? What is the correct etiquette for visiting a brothel?

These are the questions that matter in London’s Soho neighbourhood, where Clayton Littlewood and his partner Jorge Betancourt run a designer clothing store called Dirty White Boy. From his window on one of the busiest street corners in the world, Clayton watches the daily parade of fashion queens, prostitutes, gangsters and celebrities that make up the population of this strangest of villages.

His Soho diary is a snapshot of modern London, caught between the ghosts of the past and the uncertainties of the future. The cast of characters range from Sue and Maggie, the girls from the brothel upstairs, to Angela the feisty trannie, to Pam the Fag Lady, begging for money and cuddles and Chico, the campest queen on Old Compton Street. Not to mention cameo appearances from stars (Kathy Griffin, Janice Dickinson and Graham Norton).

And amidst all this madness occurs one of the strangest and most touching love stories you will ever read.

EARLY REVIEWS:

“Like the queer descendant of Samuel Pepys, Clayton Littlewood captures the day-to-day drama of his London in all of its demented glory.” —Michael Thomas Ford, author of Alec Baldwin Doesn’t Love Me and Last Summer

“Clayton Littlewood recreates the real Soho, from its beauty to its underbelly…insightful, humorous, heartbreaking.” —Arthur Wooten, author of On Picking Fruit and Fruit Cocktail

“When writers try to make art that is universal and not personal they always fail – it’s being personal which makes it universal in the end. Clayton Littlewoods book is tender, warm and full of humanity. Soho is like an upturned dustbin and he like a drunk rummaging through it. He shows us all that glitters is not gold. And all that smells is not garbage. Living in Soho is like coming all the time. Reading his book is too.” —Sebastian Horsley, author of Dandy in the Underworld

“A hilarious and poignant fly-on-the-wall view of Soho. Clayton Littlewood is the wisest fly you will ever meet.” —Josh Kilmer-Purcell, author of I Am Not Myself These Days

BIO:

Clayton Littlewood grew up in sunny Weston-Super-Mare and moved to London in his teens to join a band called Spongefinger as the lead singer. After being rejected by every record company in the UK (and many in the US), Clayton turned to pirate radio, hosting a comedy show where he posed as a female West Country aromatherapist by the name of Doctor Bunty. This led to an MA in Film and Television and writing a tv comedy script, which inspired one agent to say ‘This is the most disgusting piece of filth we’ve ever read. Don’t ever contact us again.’

Clayton’s latest incarnations have been running the shop Dirty White Boy in Soho, writing the Soho Stories column for The London Paper and being a regular contributor to BBC Radio. This is his first book.