'Grey Love is a great book. I ended up buying it on Amazon, but it first attracted my attention in Foyles on Charing Cross Road. I was browsing through the S's on the fiction shelf when I saw this beautful looking book face out next to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The book has a beautiful cover. A guy sits on a chair with a remote control in his hand. That is it. It doesn't sound much but it is a very striking image.' Katie Smart, London, United Kingdom (2004)
'For an artist or poet to make a book is a brave act nowadays. Today the contemporary publisher of poetry has a tougher job because their work is exposed to widely accessible competition from not only other artists but a commercial world that has borrowed every trick that was in the book. Poetry's obsession with the inner vision makes it vulnerable to the charge of indulgence. Jason Shelley's writing takes us inside a human being where the ego and the id bang away in every sentence. This is presented in a crisp small book form that matches the higher aspirations but does not always accord with the grittier side of the subject. Vishal Shah, as designer, manages an elegance that has an edge but the text is confessional and plays with the idea of being a diary of extreme moments that one might imagine scribbled on a rough piece of paper, the first thing that came to hand. Vishal's illustrations in The Romance hover uncomfortably between the literal and the symbolic, the latter being to my mind the marginally better place to be. In Grey Love the book is more coherent, the cover image standing for less specific information (the shadow of the figure in the chair conforming to no known rules of light and shade) but implying a more intriguing enigma. The odd use of two typefaces in the title throws up a useful jarring motif picked up in the text throughout the work printed in grey. Once again however the sophistication seems somewhat at odds with the content which repeatedly takes us into a world of alienation and loss. Full marks to Vishal Shah and Jason Shelley for attempting to use this form in the apparent new liberty of desktop and small scale publishing and credit to some of the production values that have been achieved.' Chris Orr RA, Head of Fine Art Printmaking - Royal College of Art (2005)
It is an urban, Beckettesque love story about a struggling writer who is searching for love. The book is an allegory for the 9/11 disaster and what happens after. But also it is about an individuals existential journey through life. Visually it looks great. The type inside is grey which is an interesting design feature and Tlon Books commissioned an ex-Royal College of Art student Vishal Shah to design the front cover.
From the Author - Jason Shelley
A heck of a book. You can start reading it at any page. The writing is what is called abstract realism. The book was produced with a strict collaboration between three people, the writer, the front cover designer (Vishal who illustrated for No Looking Back) and the typographist (Ravi, who is sitting in a chair on the front page). It is a book we are most pleased with and we want to do more. Please appreciate the grey text.
Limited Edition Prints
There will be limited edition prints of the front book cover illustration of Grey Love soon to be available late 2006.
