Right now I’ve got my head buried in two novels.
ROCKS IN THE BELLY
inspired by my story Precipitation
Rocks in the Belly explores a child’s capacity for evil as well as goodness; the anatomy of guilt, hatred and blame; and the effortless destruction we wreak on one another in the simple pursuit of our own happiness.
The novel covers two pivotal periods of a man’s life. Firstly, as an eight year old only child whose parents are repeatedly fostering boys, despite the jealous turmoil it brings up in their son. A jealousy that reaches unmanageable proportions when they take Robert in, an older, amiable foster child who forms a unique bond with the boy’s mum.
As the bond grows so does the son’s struggle, building towards the moment he lashes out. Although his action is simple, petulant, the ensuing accident leads Robert to sustain a severe brain injury. Robert dies six difficult years later.
Interspersed with the tension in the son’s childhood is the voice of him grown into a 28 year old man, returning home after ten years. With his mother terminally ill and his father dead, the adult protagonist is forced to tend his mother in her illness, as well as face what being home brings up in him. He hasn’t moved beyond that one moment in his childhood, except to blame his mother for what he did to Robert . He hates her for it, and yet he also finds the same need for her love and approval.
But his mother isn’t that same strong woman anymore. Now she’s dependent on his kindness, and he the dominant force – a power he can’t help but abuse.
Both periods of his life are written in the first person and interwoven – building towards Robert’s awful accident and aftermath, and the grown son’s race to find redemption before his mother dies.
A graphic, visceral but often beautiful and funny novel, Rocks in the Belly reasserts that, statistically, the most dangerous place for a child is in the family.
THE PROPHET OF LOSS
I researched this novel for over 18 months. Living in Morocco as well as learning about Islam; visiting mosques and spending time with Muslims both in the UK, Australia and Morocco.
Harold is a lonely teacher struggling to hold onto his job in a private school. Caught between his loneliness and his fear of people, he lives most of his private life in isolation. And then one night he gets drunk and finds himself at a brothel.
There he meets Halima, a young Moroccan woman who has just been deceived into coming to the country from Morocco. She makes it impossible for Harold not to try and get her out, and despite the haphazard way he goes about it, he does get her out.
The story is about their relative struggles. The brothel is persecuting Harold for the money they’ve lost, Halima is pregnant, has no passport and, as a once fairly devout cultural Muslim, she’s unable to simply go home to her family. And all she has for support is a self-destructing Harold and her wavering faith. But she also has her wits.