Margate Bookshop Event

2nd July 2026

Fort Road Hotel Bar

Howard Cunnell discusses his new memoir Sun Country at Fort Road Hotel Bar in Margate

7pm - 9pm

A luminous love letter to his mother, his boyhood and the changing coast of southern England.

A homecoming and a homage, a remembrance and a reckoning, Howard Cunnell's memoir Sun Country was written after the death of his beloved single mother Gillian, whose life is the book's beating heart. In shimmering and lyrical prose, Cunnell charts a course back to the Sussex beachlands of his working-class childhood, also retracing his steps as a writer and artist. At once deeply personal and expansive in its scope, Sun Country shines a meditative gaze on our sorrows, our stories and our shadows, the things we inherit and the transgressive power of art.

Howard Cunnell’s most recent books are a novel, The Painter’s Friend and an earlier memoir, Fathers and Sons. A former scuba instructor and dive guide, he is the contributing editor of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road - The Original Scroll. He'll be discussing Sun Country in conversation with Margate-based writer and compere extraordinaire, Ryan J. Smith.

The wonderful Fort Road Hotel host the meet-ups in their basement bar with a delicious selection of drinks and snacks.

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