On LATCHKEY by Jeff Young (Sacred Parasite Berlin, 2026)
The great Jeff Young’s brand new book is a pocket prize
Full of wonder. Latchkey’s not a kid, but in this case, a poet
As well as an old and lent lease on life, as Young’s unnamed
Narrator is formed from a Just-Avoided-Jeff in a dreamstate,
And if he had lived his life lonely, without respect, reputation
And the beauty of Amy and Pearl, child and wife.
Set in a Liverpool 8 I knew well, circa the mid 1980s,
When after the nearby Toxteth riots dream bombs are falling
Full of ‘insects and bedsores’ primed by the poetry
Of Young’s pen we are introduced to a world which is like
Shulz’s Street of Crocodiles, with samosas, as the cornershop’s
Frying through the fog and pea soupers sipped inside
The spilling minds of spent men. With his beloved Becks gone,
In order to become Venezuelan, other L8 characters crowd him,
From the Fingerprint man to Bleachface, to Pete the three legged
Mouse, dogging him, as he slides from poem to pavement and back,
A latchkey kid fucked by freedom who through each fresh encounter
Feeds on a notion of chaos and chance growing slim. I was reminded
Of Brian Catling’s Earwig, in the way that Young can make shadows
Swelter, and the means by which household aspects and objects too
Shine and brim. ‘How beautiful the Dulux and the undercoat will look
in the pale blue dawn’ is pure Jeff and this book is struck by lines
Of soft lightning. For this is Novella as poem, not in layout of course,
But in heart. And that is so novel too as Young in age is a painter
His words are oil and acrylic with watercolour runs. Its typed art.
Sat amidst ‘dark philosophers and insomniacs’ Latchkey drinks,
So as to observe the decay that defines them and this is how
We see secret cities which Liverpool always was and still is,
Despite the Fab Four and all who came in their wake,
Doddy also, this is story and snapshot of what we could call
‘Don’t showbiz.’ But feel it instead as you inhale Young’s novella,
Savour each sentence as it crawls into your hand, a lit slug
Becoming a butterfly blown by the care and chrysalis of a writer
Who brews books like magic, from Deliria and last year’s Wild Twin
To 40 years of plays, tracts and poems to warm both heart and hand
Like the mug placed in the grandmother’s grasp in Bill Douglas’s
First film My Childhood. In Latchey’s adulthood or unmanhood
Perhaps the blues warm not only the house but the soul as well,
Once they’re stolen and the records of Sleepy John Estes
Having disappeared start a swarm of need and memory mixed
With alcohol and abandon, as an underworld quest across
Pavements for a wisdom win powers all, and this from a man
Who is ‘more attached to sleevenotes than humans’ living
Hand to mouth and heart also, carting batteries beside Hopkirk
For the price of a pint, poems stall. And yet there is continued
Verse in the verve of what could be Knut Hamsun’s Hunger,
Only Rashaan Roland Kirk saves him, despite the squeezing
Of flies like a sax pad, and the salvation of a Smithdown Road
Egg and chips; yet still the journey is all, despite his neighbour
Rampling and a rent boy, despite a night time visitation
At the foot of his bed, surface slips which lead to an inner ocean
Or one that Pete the three legged mouse doggy paddles,
Slanted to the side and yet slurping beside the blank barred
Men in closed pubs. Everything slides. Everything of worth
Is soon stolen, from a near sacred record player to a blind
Mongrel dog. Here’s the hub around which reality rips,
Unbelievable when expected and magical also when Jeff
Young yearns for new worlds to find worth by chickening out
Of wrecked eggs, singed in the pan and yet singing of plated suns,
Albums, and the albumen of rebirth. And so it proves here
In a perfect novella. One that is feels new and ancient
At the exact same time, Kafkaesque as the insects surround
As opposed to rising from within, while dead letters, written
On walls, toilet paper and the texture of dreams arabesque
In the unstately dance of the old before their time
And downtrodden. Walks through the city or across
Liverpool 8 make the one the sum of all things that can
And will happen. There are dreams of shoplifters
And the ache of return. A smeared sun which could be practically
Wiped like grimed glass gives this book a Quay Brothers shimmer.
We are watching the world from old doorsteps in which centuries
Realign. We have the buckled key in our hands and soon feel
Near this narrator and so we time travel through the poise
Of Jeff Young’s prose to see signs leading back to a past made
Of Hanna-Barberra psychosis, somehow becalmed beside
Squalor and this one square mile odyssey. Here in your hand
Is all you need. It’s not Nolan. For fuck’s sake, the Fingerprint man’s
Holding Angels! Here are the lines then to lead you, from Hardman
Street to surrender on soft and shining steps.
Turn Jeff’s key.
David Erdos 10/10/26
https://www.sacredparasite.com/product/jeff-youngs-latchkey