V. Press is very very pleased to launch Three Men on the Edge, a flash fiction novella by Michael Loveday featuring three men living on the edge of London.
The story of the three men – Gus, Denholm and Martyn – is narrated in three distinctive sections: Denholm – Cause for Alarm; Gus – The Invisible World; Martyn – Chewing Glass.
“A beautifully crafted novella-in-flash, small and perfect slices of
life written with skill and heart.” Kit de Waal
“In his debut novella Michael Loveday sketches with a
delicate brush the colourful lives of three troubled men living on the edge of
London. With poetic language and emotional precision, Loveday writes like a
cartographer about the wilderness we call ‘the human heart’.” Meg Pokrass
“This is a novella full of the aches and bruises left by
loneliness. It's written in fragments, like a bottle smashed during a solitary
boozing session, but it coheres around the vividly captured edgeland that
haunts the three men. This a heart-felt book, but its prose is controlled by a
steely intelligence. It's funny, too – and moving and scary. Michael Loveday is
a name to watch. He's writing a new kind of fiction.” David Swann
Three
Men on the Edge
is very richly shaded and very unconventional.
R.R.P. £9.99
Sample flashes from each of the three sections of the novella may be enjoyed below.
BUY a copy of Three Men on the Edge now using the paypal button below.
BUY a copy of Three Men on the Edge now using the paypal button below.
LAUNCH EVENTS
Bath Launch: Saturday, 6 October 2018. 1.45 for 2 p.m. Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution, Queen Square, Bath, BA1 2HN.
SAMPLE FLASHES
From (I) Denholm – Cause for Alarm
i. Lost
Object
(Where are the fragranced pillows,
where are the flying horses) Denholm balances the square box on his palm, lifts
the purple lid, and inside, instead of hazelnut whirls and lemon crunches,
resting in the depressions of the plastic tray, are the fifteen pairs of keys
which used to open Gorgeous Gifts, no longer a going concern (where are the
Union Jack beard trimmers, where are the tiger-print purses), he closes his
eyes, fingers the keys, they rattle in his brain, fifty years trading on
Rickmansworth High Street, Watford, Chorleywood, Bushey, St. Albans, places
where mother’s business dug into Hertfordshire soil (find us the faux-diamond
ballerinas, find us the Spitfire key-rings); how he cherished helping buyers
turn panic to inspiration, and he drifts back to the Rickmansworth storeroom,
clambering through stuffed cardboard boxes, the one-chair staffroom with its
grown-up magazines (go find the Hertfordshire egg-timers, go find the invisible
inks), and the smell of Grandma’s daily gammon rolls, how the shop became a
home, how he memorised those cluttered shelves (go get the coin-box skulls, go
get the footballing pigs), and how much he loathed the family party-trick, the
loss of light as they put the blindfold in place.
[First published in Flash: the International Short-Short Story Magazine]
From (II) Gus – The Invisible World
ix. Town Ditch, September
Five corpses float at the surface.
Carried in the water is a dark sludge that seems to be silt: when he dips his
hand, the sludge smells only of earth.
The next day many more litter the
ditch. He gives up counting. They bob in the slow current, spinning as they
snag against branches and leaves.
He looks closer, sees others, alive,
rising to the surface, their gills beating for breath amid the black silt.
Chubs, bullheads, minnows, roaches. Glinting silver scales, sandy-yellow
blotches, flecks of gold, orange. The dead ones float flat on their sides.
He shivers. The bare eyes stare up,
gawping blindly at him.
xxxi.
Sometimes Anja praises Martyn so
highly she makes him feel like Superman. He has the Superman dream always the
same way: not the caped crusader saving the civilised world, but Clark Kent the
reporter wearing preppy spectacles and befuddled by Lois Lane—except Lois is
Anja—and Anja’s nipples are made of kryptonite. But this is a dream and
Lois-Anja is also somehow Lex Luthor at one and the same time—looking like Gene
Hackman with his big-collared 1970s shirt—and Lois-Anja Hackman takes off Clark
Kent’s glasses, kisses his brow sadly, then draws his head closer to her
deadly, trembling chest.
[First published in Funny Bone: Flashing for Comic Relief]
REVIEWS
"Michael Loveday’s Three Men on the Edge (V. Press, 2018) reminds me of why I love the novella-in-flash form. This story, told in a series of fragments, drops you right into the worries and yearnings of three men living in uncertain times in a watery suburb of London. Loveday’s poetic rendering of everyday details takes the reader to a captivating, but beleaguered, town where the protagonists can be as touching and, at times, funny, as they are clueless about how to move forward in their lives. The writing follows Denholm, Gus and Martyn into the more vulnerable corners of their edgelands existence, unveiling their disappointments, perplexities and desires with poignancy, humor and an unforgettable sense of place. There is something touchingly and disturbingly recognizable in each of the protagonists. And there is something about Three Men on the Edge that makes me want to take a stroll away from the high street and find a place to sit along the canals of Rickmansworth."
Charmaine Wilkerson, author of How to Make a Window Snake, winner of the Bath Novella-in-Flash Award 2017, review here.
