PAPERBACK & EBOOK AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW! PUBLISHED 1st AUGUST 2020 “This Ragged, Wastrel Thing is alive with colour, energy and vibrant language. Marcantonio possesses the rare ability of enticing the reader to turn the page, not only to discover what happens next, but to experience yet another visceral and original turn of phrase. A
They had lost Father. Amelia held Mother’s hand, the two of them giggling together as they made their way through the forest. They were surrounded by vibrant green: in the trees’ thick leaves, in the crunching undergrowth, in the moss that crept up the stones. The air smelled sweet. Even at six years old, Amelia
The Training Centre (Normandy, April 1945) Eleanor has found a needle and thread: she can sew my shoulder patches on now. We walk down to the crumbling concrete bench that runs along the esplanade, and look at the waves. I give her my khaki jacket and the two little pieces of cloth, and watch as
When you were twelve you made a new face to put on top of your face. As far as you could tell there was nothing wrong with your face—it looked completely normal, just like everyone else’s—but for some reason, nearly every time other people looked at you, they got angry. This had been happening for
There she was. Smokey the wrestling bear riding in the back of a pink Cadillac. De-clawed, de-fanged and drugged out of her mind. Earl Black pulled up at The Dreamland Motel, one thumbless hand on the wheel. “Get in,” Earl stretched for the door. “She ripped the truck apart. I had to belt her up
In the event of a playground altercation, Mr. and Mrs. Grace have told their seven-year-old son to abide by the following rule: Hit Back, Not First. A sharp little piece of parallel structure, Mrs. Grace thinks. Four words, four syllables; a neat arrangement of assertive consonants communicating an honourable principle. Hit Back, Not First. Perfect.
Mingled with the aroma of plug in air freshener and the chemical lemon of floor cleaner was a faint but unmistakable whiff of putrefaction. Bob forked an undercooked piece of broccoli into his mouth, chewed it the requisite number of times then swallowed. Across the table, Blaise and Rita were locked in conversation about plastic
Sitting atop the hood of his broken-down Chevy Impala on a quiet desert road outside the town of Zeller, New Mexico, Hal Flannery saw the boy with the pale skin and cold, black eyes. The boy had to be around twelve years old. He was pedaling away from Zeller and toward Hal on a rusty
The tension really began to peak around Strensham Services, just off the M5. Daniel had been getting increasingly anxious about visiting his father for weeks, but up to this point he’d had the good grace to bear it in silence. Daniel didn’t like to make a fuss (or so he vehemently protested) so whenever something
He sat. He sat, and he waited. He sat, and he waited, and he began to grow impatient and unwilling to sit and wait any longer, that and plus, he had exhausted his supply of chips and salsa. The waitress, dressed in the pale pinks, yellows, and blues of a vaguely ethnic and super-flowy dress
