A month has
gone past since I published the book “KELLY,” and I still find myself pondering
exactly why I wrote it, what it all really means. I eagerly await some reviews,
but I accept that it is quite a lengthy read. Let me say that it is unlike
anything I have ever written, I normally write comedy but when I read or hear
the news, all these sick and twisted events, be they person against person or
country against country I think to myself that is sick, that is twisted and how
can I be expected to make people laugh when these events happen in the world.
That is the base level of my thoughts surrounding the book; I will go into more
detail now and hope that this blog doesn’t contain too many spoilers.
The news,
it’s what is new see, hence the name. We see and hear the news every day, the
war, the murder, the corruption; it’s all there for us to digest but it is here
today gone tomorrow. Tomorrow will bring us a new set of “news,” and the old
stories of yesterday slowly become evanescent. I recall the Milly Dowler story,
for those outside the UK she was a 13 year old girl abducted in Walton on
Thames and found murdered in Yately Heath Woods, Hampshire some six months
later.
Her case has
been tangled up in the phone hacking scandal of the British Press, but this is
not why I mention it at this point in time. I recall when they found the body
in 2002, I heard on the news the whereabouts of the body and it was near to
where my parents lived. It just so happens that I was on my way to visit them
that weekend. As I pulled off the motorway I was wondering to myself where the location
of the woods was. Then I pulled up to a roundabout to see many cars parked up
randomly over the road and people were gathering to lay flowers upon the police
roadblock off the first exit of the roundabout; it answered my question with a
cold chill. It occurred to me that then that although I knew it was real,
because I had heard it on the news, so many items I hear on the news and like I
said they are there one day, gone the next. This was real, really real, this
happened, I know I saw the aftermath. I guess what I am trying to say is that
it felt more real, because I had seen evidence of it with my own eyes and my
thoughts lay with all the people that were affected by the tragedy, her
friends, her parents as for them this would never go away, it was not six
months of news that would soon be replaced by another tragedy, it would live
with them for the rest of their lives. It is all so obvious really, and rather
sad to think that through all the horrific things we see on the news they start
to become so commonplace, until we actually have some physical sighting of it;
then we cry in shame that another member of our species could be so cruel and
heartless.
Bob Geldof
bought this to our attention when they first filmed the famine in Ethiopia. We
saw this on our TV but if we chose to we could turn our faces away, we could
pretend that these were just images on a screen, things happening somewhere
else, to people so far away; we did not have to witness it with our own eyes.
TV gives us so much fiction, it easy to blend the horror of reality into it
too, so that we don’t have to face the sad truth. The truth is, it was real, it
did really happen.
In 2011 a
murder of a young girl in Swindon, our closet large urban area happened. People
gathered to search the forest but it was a false lead and her body was found
elsewhere. It was a case close to everyone’s hearts locally but when her mother
came on national TV, as she had been kept silent from the press for some time I
realised she was a lady I used to work with. I had not put the surname into
consideration and it shocked me to see her on the news. She was always so happy
and amusing at work, a lovely woman but now, her face on the TV was different,
her expression was one I had never seen her use before, it was contorted with
the shock, the horror and stress this event had caused her. I couldn’t sleep
that night; the story took on a whole new sphere of reality.
I guess with
KELLY I wanted to express this notion, to create a set of horrific scenarios
which highlighted how sick some humans can be. I wanted to note that we all
must have done something wrong in our life, no matter how small. It would seem
that there is something fundamentally wrong with human nature, something evil,
corrupt and wicked and am I’m guilty too?
I read an
article that explained that the world of microbiology as a constant war,
bacteria is always having a bit of a scrap. Just like it we fight, fight over
land, money, religion and most ironically, love.
So the story
began highlighting modern life, how everyone is out to buck the system, claim
what they think should be theirs and generally go about pissed off with someone
or something. I tried to recreate subplots from gossip and news items alike and
weave them into a narrative that would be shocking and harsh but retain a
certain reality. Then I began to consider how this could be changed, could we
ever learn to live in peace. A hippy, am I a hippy? If it means I want world
peace than maybe I am, either that or a Miss World contestant. The hippy though
is a stereotype to be mocked, they wanted to “save the earth,” many decades
before we realised they were right and the world’s governments try to convince
the world they are doing their bit to help with this problem. Still though, the
hippy is mocked.
So, call me
a hippy if you will, say that my writing is left wing but I tired have I not to
highlight the scandal in all walks of life as although the story lends its beginnings
to social issues of the poor and working class as the story progresses we see
the depravity that the middle and upper classes also involve themselves with. A
solution you may ask, well, could we really find one without converting the
narrative to fantasy? Paranormal you might think at first but as the tale
reveals itself you might want to categorise KELLY as science fiction.
I tried to
cross all genres with this book, in hope that people would not categorise it
and read it with an open mind. I want to keep the notion real and so I held no
bars and regulations, I wanted to evoke as many emotions as I could. If I want
the reader to be sickened in this chapter I did it, if I wanted them then to
feel love or even carnal desires than I did so. This book has some fairly
erotic and romantic notions in it too in which I wanted to convey the same
value of emotion within and so I did not hold back in describing the sexual
scenes. Although I would point out this is far from labelled it an erotic
novel.
So as it weaves
and winds through the events they begin to build up to a conclusion in which I could
not possibly have kept the reality about me, deciding that perhaps the biggest
problem this world faced that our own emotions is the root cause, and that this
was sadly something we could never fix; that thin line between love and hate.
So then I thought as to what an outsider to the world might view as a possible solution,
an alien or a computer perhaps and hey presto; the conclusion!
Now the reasons
for book altered so that I saw part one as a social caricature, a sickening and
depraved parody that turned horror. The girl is something more than human, we
leave it at that; which is what I was going to do, leave it at that, as a short
story with an open ending.
But I knew I
could not leave it there. The second part is purely political satire, exposing
the depravity within the upper and middle classes; bringing in the concept that
power corrupts. I retain the unnerving notion that Kelly is not of this earth
and her mystery grows with her power. By the end of the chapter all is made
clear, the reasons are exposed.
The third part
moves into science fiction as time rolls through a generation. The result is a
return to part one and perhaps a possible better world, I’m not going to say
much more than this; I don’t want to spoil it too much for you. I have kept the
details of the book hidden, saying nothing in the blurbs and online descriptions.
Keeping it mysterious allows the reader to go into the book blindfolded, I hope.
The other reasons are that this book is open to interruption and maybe, even
after writing it I am scrambling around in dark about what it all means as much
as you are! I made reference to the books I have read that I think reflect and
were an inspiration for KELLY, not that it could ever be as good as these but I
only wished; Orson Wells’ 1984, Aubrey Huxley’s Brave New World and Joseph Keller’s
Catch 22. With Kelly I wanted to reflect on social life, I wanted to rid myself
of the notion that there is nothing that could ever be done to solve how shit
human behaviour can be and mostly, to ponder how I am supposed to write comedy
when the world is such a sick and twisted place to live.
So as our
childhood heroes turn out to be nothing but untouchable paedophiles, our politicians
turn out to criminals and our press turn out to be under such pressure they
will stop at no moral lengths to get the scoop, please sit back and enjoy this
pure work of fiction.
As the poor
people around us suffer to such an extent that they live up the stereotype that
higher classes label them with and become twisted and immoral and the upper
classes thrive on this and look down upon them and laugh, read my work of pure
fiction.
As the world’s
leader’s pretend to be bothered about
the issues that affect the future generations that will inherit this planet and
continue to thrive on only one thing, money, please digest this work of pure
fiction but know that that it all it is, fiction.
For all that
has done wrong, for all that has sacrificed mankind to save their own soul; you
go about your business. Everyone else note I may just be saying all this as
just an excuse for writing some seriously dark and twisted shit! It you fall
into any of these social categories please read KELLY and if you do, be careful
what you wish for…..
