16 May 2005
How many books?
I want to tell you about some books I am dying to read.
The Half-Day Bus is the lead title in a short story collection. It's a lovely, understated piece about a girl of 15, waiting for the half-day bus into town. The bus is late and the wait is tiresome.
The girl lives in a village just too far to walk or cycle to anywhere significant - anywhere fun. Her parents won't let her hitch. She meets an old woman at the stop. The woman tells the girl she is 82 years old.
In fact, her age is the only thing she can remember - her name, her address, her phone number, everything has gone out of her head. The girl walks her round the village until - eventually - the old woman begins to recognise landmarks and, at last, the girl can deliver her home. The old woman wants her to come in, so she stops for a cup of tea.
The 15-year-old girl leaves the old woman's house hours later. As she walks home, she sees the bus pulled in to the car park of the pub, bonnet up, still broken down. She was never going in to town that half-day anyway.
Good for you, I'm mad too! is a story about a frustrated housewife. Because her life is unsatisfying, she is always looking for something outside of herself to give her a sense of purpose and worth. She is a sucker for gurus.
The woman obtains a divorce from her charming but uncomprehending husband. They sell their house in Crouch End and she takes her half of the money and buys a property in Galicia, at the end of the Earth - Finisterre.
All she takes with her is her arsenal of self-help books and a desire for a new life - and a new happiness. In Galicia she meets a man - a guru - responsible for a commune of 18 adults and children. They begin a sexual relationship which ends in disaster for both of them - but which ushers a new beginning for the commune.
20 Dead Cats in my Wendy House is another short story collection. The lead title concerns a memory from the author's childhood.
As a child, the author enjoys playing on a large and rambling farm where her family has lived and worked for generations. She is very close to her brothers and sister, but lacks emotional contact with her mother and - especially - her father.
At 8 years old, the author finds a whole colony of cats and kittens, living in a disused barn. She keeps them secret for several weeks, until she learns the barn is to be used to shelter some machinery after harvest. She tells her father, hoping - trusting - he will find somewhere else for them to live.
Her father has the cats all shot. The labourer who shoots them stacks them out of sight in the Wendy house because he wants to get away home early. When she learns what has happened, she runs to her Wendy house to hide. She finds them.
The other 19 stories are all memories of childhood, of pivotal moments from an imaginary childhood ...
My novel Labyrinth has secrets from a distant past, a modern heroine and a 13th century heroine.
Labyrinth exists. They have been written. You can print them and hold them in your hand. In fact, Labyrinth publishes in the first week in July and you can already see it on book-selling websites.
Labyrinth is different from The Half-Day Bus, Good for you, I'm mad too! and 20 Dead Cats in my Wendy House because we made those three up in a creative writing class. No one has taken the trouble and effort to write them yet.
There is no alternative to walking the Labyrinth.
