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'My life is different now. I don't go to work. I
don't have an office. I stay at home, hide behind
curtains and make notes. I wait for something to
happen.'
Gordon Kingdom struggles with the fate
of his seriously-ill wife while patiently observing and
methodically recording the lives of those around him:
his neighbours.
He has files on them all,
including Don Donald (best friend and petty thief),
Annie Carnaffan (lives next door, throws footballs over
the fence), and Benny (the boy who paints with his eyes
closed).
Then there's Angelica, the new girl (42)
on the street, with her multi-coloured toenails and her
filthy temper. It's when she arrives that Gordon's world
of half-truths really begins to unravel.
Faced
with a series of unexpected events and a faltering
conscience, he's left with an impossible decision.
Because in the banality of everyday life, what would you
do if the unthinkable happened? Note from the
author:
A is for Angelica is contemporary
literary fiction.
The premise, avoiding spoilers,
is that Gordon Kingdom, the lead character and narrator,
struggles to cope with his wife having had her second
stroke in 18 months. It doesn't help that he decides to
keep it a secret, believing he can care for her himself.
And that he's preoccupied with Benny, the boy across the
road who paints with his eyes closed, and Angelica, the
woman who moves into the house opposite. Eventually,
something has to give.
I started writing Angelica
during my time on Sheffield Hallam University's MA
Writing programme. It's the culmination of several
years' work and research. People always ask if someone
close to me has suffered from stroke, and fortunately
that's not the case. I chose to write about it because I
wanted to explore the way that people cope (or fail to
cope) with the sense of loss that comes with serious
illness.
Essentially, A is for Angelica is a
novel about people in impossible situations and how they
react to them. It's about how we all react when we don't
know what to do. There are places where you're supposed
to laugh. There are places where you're supposed to cry.
I loved the writing. I hope you enjoy the reading.
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