Pub weirdo finds his voice

South London-based NZ writer Paul Ewen has released his first book, London Pub Reviews. Ewen set up his own publishing company, Shoes With Rockets, to make sure the collection of humorous fictional reviews of real pubs made it to the shelves. It is now being sold at the Tate Britain and numerous independent book shops around the city, as well as on Amazon. “I first got to know my way around London by using a pub guide and by visiting the best pubs in different areas,” says Ewen. “Because I was using it so much, I sort of got into the vernacular of the pub guide, and when I started writing in these pubs I was visiting, the pub reviews became a kind of scaffolding for my stories.” According to fellow author Tom McCarthy, Ewen has “given voice to that perennial figure who haunts the margins of all our lives: the pub weirdo”, while author and editor Toby Litt hails Ewen as “the funniest new writer I have read in years”.