# Waking Up in Toytown

Canonical: https://www.bookquiver.com/john-burnside/waking-up-in-toytown

![Waking Up in Toytown](https://quivercdn.com/covers/vintage/john-burnside/waking-up-in-toytown_978-15-2996-287-1-16143bcd.jpg?v=2026-09-24%2004%3A07%3A52)

- Authors: [John Burnside](https://www.bookquiver.com/john-burnside)
- Language: en_GB
- Published: 2011-01-06

## Description

In the early 80s, after a decade of drug abuse and borderline mental illness, John Burnside resolved to escape his addictive personality and find calm in a 'Surbiton of the mind'. But the suburbs are not quite as normal as he had imagined and, as he relapses into chaos, he encounters a homicidal office worker who is obsessed with Alfred Hitchcock and Petula Clark, an old lover, with whom he reprises a troubled, masochistic relationship and, finally, the seemingly flesh-and-blood embodiments of all his private phantoms. The sequel to his haunting, celebrated account of a troubled childhood, Waking Up in Toytown is unsettling, touching, oddly romantic and unflinchingly honest.

## Editions

### Waking Up in Toytown

- Publisher: Vintage
- ISBN: 978-15-2996-287-1
- Pages: 288
- Published: 2025-08-07
- Language: en_GB

### Waking Up in Toytown

- Publisher: Vintage
- ISBN: 978-00-9950-783-3
- Pages: 272
- Published: 2011-01-06
- Language: en_GB