The Age of Anxiety by Pete Townshend out now!

The Age of Anxiety is a great rock novel, but that is one of the less important things about it. The narrator is a brilliant creation – cultured, witty and unreliable. The novel captures the craziness of the music business and displays Pete Townshend’s sly sense of humour and sharp ear for dialogue. First conceived as an opera, The Age of Anxiety deals with mythic and operatic themes including a maze, divine madness and long-lost children. Hallucinations and soundscapes haunt this novel, which on one level is an extended meditation on manic genius and the dark art of creativity.

“This novel was written to provide the base for a solid libretto for an opera-art-installation I regard as perhaps my last major solo work. The libretto is complete. The music is composed. The video artists and installation artists are in position. I’m hoping 2021 and 2022 will see me get to realise this project at last.

The author is a rock musician, and there are some characters who are in bands, but it is also a mystery story, and a story about drug abuse, being a parent, creativity, anxiety, being blocked as an artist, and the psychic miracles worked by certain women in the story. Believe it or not (and I doubt you will) this is not autobiographical. I’ve done that. But the story is set very much in my world, my work, my neighbourhood, and is inspired by my people.”

~ Pete Townshend

Pete Townshend’s novel The Age of Anxiety is out now. Pete will be at various events to promote The Age of Anxiety:

Meet Pete Townshend

Waterstone’s Piccadilly London, Tuesday 5 November at 6:00pm.

Author, singer and songwriter Pete Townshend will be signing copies of his debut novel, The Age of Anxiety.

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An Evening with Pete Townshend

How To Academy, Central hall, Storey’s Gate, Westminster, London SW1H 9NH, Wednesday, 6 November 2019 from 7:00 pm – 8:15 pm

Pete Townshend in conversation with Mariella Frostrup

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An Evening with Pete Townshend in Brighton

St George’s Church, St George’s Rd, Kemptown, Brighton, BN2 1ED, Thursday 7 November at 7:00pm

Author, singer and songwriter Pete Townshend in conversation with Chris Charlesworth about his debut novel, The Age of Anxiety.

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Kew Bookshop welcomes Pete Townshend

Kew Bookshop, 1-2 Station Approach, Kew TW9 3QB, Tuesday 12 November 2019 from 1:00pm – 2:00pm

Author, singer and songwriter Pete Townshend will be signing copies of his debut novel, The Age of Anxiety.

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Pete Townshend in Conversation

Foyles Bookshop, 107 Charing Cross Road, London WC2H 0DT, Thursday 14 November 2019 from 7:00pm-8:00pm

Meet Pete Townshend, legendary lead guitarist of The Who, as he opens the pages of his debut rock novel The Age of Anxiety—a rebellious fusion of music, drugs, passion and love.

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