Leaving London

After a break-up, a depressed writer is drawn back to the city, only to find that his self-destructive tendencies are a little harder to leave behind.

Drink, drugs, sex, love, hate, loneliness, game-playing relationships, an escape to New York and the daily grind - just another day in the city. Leaving London takes place within one year. A year in which two people who are doing their best to protect themselves may ultimately have to let down their guards.

"Your problem is that you're more like an empty book and you're waiting on someone else to write your pages for you. For someone who doesn't believe in fate, destiny and all that shit, you seem to spend an awful lot of time waiting for something to happen to you." - Sofia

Temporary jobs, temporary friends and temporary relationships. Temporary can easily lead to a disconnected life and loneliness can become an ironic by-product of living in a city of eight million people.

After a recent break-up, Cal finds himself in London where he tries his best to traverse the metropolis by maintaining only the most temporary of responsibilities and relationships. Unfortunately, the city has other plans. Assaulted on Christmas Eve, office politics, a suicidal escort-worker flat-mate and a new writing job for a less than responsible employer all conspire to add to his constant hangover. But when Sofia moves in, a woman he is both attracted to and suspicious of, Cal soon finds himself in a co-dependent relationship full of anxiety, turmoil and hard truths. It's easy to find someone in city of eight million but trusting someone is a different matter.

An anti-romance story for the analyzation generation. A humorous, gritty and sometimes very dark look at life in a city where staying disconnected can sometimes be the only survival tool.

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Leaving London Reviews

"The city of London itself plays as a major character in the narrative. For those who have been there it will invoke wonderful memories of the city and for those who have never visited, it will make you want to hop the next plane and shoot right over and walk in Cal's footsteps. The city's vastness, in all its glory and wonder, grime and grit, seems to echo Cal's emotional state at times and his sense of being "lost" and "rudderless" as he struggles to maintain his footing in a place very unfamiliar to him. Cal not only seeks his place within London itself but within his own emotional sphere as well. Garry Crystal has a very original voice and I have no doubt that you will enjoy this complex and thought provoking story. Highly recommended." - Julian Gallo, author of Rhombus Denied, Expats Post.

"Because he is often wandering the streets in a chemically altered state late at night, he subjects himself to the seamier side of life and gets robbed, beaten up and has sex with whomever he ends up with at the end of the evening. Most of his contemporaries seem to do the same. There is a theme of loneliness running throughout the book and Crystal captures this quite well and you find it easy to see why many get disheartened and feel a strong sense of alienation, stuck in jobs that are low paying with little chance for advancement." - Online Book Club

"Yes this book is about relationships. Those relationships are ephemeral. That we are either doomed to repeat our mistakes or protect ourselves with walls, not out of fear but as a sort of silent dignity. There are many passages that I find beautiful and I find myself getting back to them just to read the prose and how they resonate with important points in my life. To me Leaving London is a lengthy love letter, like a message in a bottle. I hope it reaches more readers out there." - Baxter Labatos, Sphere Music