Brighton Darkness is a collection of seventeen stories that mostly relate to that amorphous place called Brighton and Hove: a city of dreams that enfolds both young and old and that must somehow always be returned to. Two youths in the 1950s experience a gay desire that begins in St Ann’s Well Gardens and continues in the back row of the Astoria cinema. An ex-hustler meets a famous male movie star, long since thought to be dead. A birthday party doesn’t quite turn out as planned, but has its own unexpected present of truth. A woman looks back upon her past in Regency Square, which is now almost beyond recognition to her. There is an encounter in the city between two Russians who try to come to terms with the tragic death of a young man they both loved. And snow falls in the city, hiding the unseen darkness beneath.

Roman Baker always keeps the narrative tension taut … short stories that linger in the mind long after they’ve been read. - Gscene Magazine

John Roman Baker is a British poet, playwright and novelist who has lived and written in Paris, Amsterdam and Brighton.