Only Lovers Left Alive

Only Lovers Left Alive is a 1964 dystopian fiction novel by Dave Wallis. It describes a near-future society in which all adults have committed suicide and teenagers are able to run wild. With its theme of youth in charge and out of control, the book hit a chord with the emerging counter-culture, and a film adaptation starring the Rolling Stones and directed by Nicholas Ray was planned in the mid-1960s. Publication Wallis was an English writer working as a supply teacher, with two previous novels, and he was in his late 40s when it came out. After being rejected by his previous publisher Heinemann, Only Lovers Left Alive was published by Anthony Blond with a print run of 10,000 copies, high for a comparatively unknown author. US paperback rights were sold for US$25,000. Plot All adults have committed suicide, and teenagers are left to their own devices. Gangs war with each other, while more sensible teens try to establish a new society. Response The Observer praised the novel's first half for linking the teenagers' destructiveness to the violence of present-day society, but found it tended towards an adventure novel full of cliche and sensationalism. Kirkus said "characters are perfectly banal and the author's imagination pedestrian". The New York Times called the book's premise "irresistible".