The book what I wrote

I try to keep this kind of blog cross-pollination to an absolute minimum, but given Rol's kind review of my novel and the Venn diagram overlap between his blog readership and mine, it seems an appropriate moment. So here goes.

I wrote a book. Yes, really. It took me the best part of six and a half years, off and on: five years to write, ten months to edit, and nine months to tout it around agents and publishers. The last two stages are probably about right, but the five years writing was way too long. The great philosopher Harold Bishop once said, "Prevarication is the enemy of achievement." I prevaricated. Anyway, unable to tempt agents or publishers with the marketability, or otherwise, of a downbeat debut novel, I bit the bullet and published it myself. The results are here.

What's it all about, I hear you ask? Well, the short answer is: "Thirtysomething wage slave struggles with grief, guilt, girls and going nowhere." The long answer is... well, here's the back cover blurb:

How low can you go?

For some people, the death of one parent and the incremental loss to dementia of the other would be bad enough. Or perhaps the risk of losing their job, even a dead-end, mindless job, with witless colleagues and an objectionable boss. But for Peter, these concerns are underscored by grief for his fiancée, Emma, and the guilt he feels for his part in her suicide. Having put everything on hold for three years trying to deal with Emma's death, Peter has become a passenger in his own life, spiralling into an increasingly destructive cycle of behaviour that can only have one outcome. Or can it?

Drawn To The Deep End is an honest and, at times, darkly comic portrayal of what it is to be a young man alone and adrift in 21st Century Britain.

No, wait, come back! Downbeat, yes, but not as grim as it sounds. Don't just take my word for it - as Rol said, "It's also very funny - shot through with dark observational humour that makes you wince and nod and wish you'd written it yourself." I promise I did not pay him to write that.

Interested? Why not take a look then. It's not perfect, in that some of the format is a little out of whack (why oh why does this display the first paragraph of a chapter with a hanging indent, for example?), but Amazon offer an embeddable preview of the e-books they sell. So ... here's an embedded preview of Drawn To The Deep End. Enjoy. Maybe buy? Perhaps then review, like Rol? Hey, it doesn't hurt to ask, right?

Thanks for indulging me. Clandestine Classics, the Underappreciated and Fantasy Cover Versions will return soon, honest.