Black Figs
At the moment, I’m still just about functional for my sons, a teat, a hand to hold onto, a stomach to wail into. I’ve done my share of travelling, working, partying, betrayal of lovers and friends, sobering death experiences to numb : there are no more epiphanies. I’ve seen the types of places, people and things, the same fade encyclopaedic pages turning. Oh that’s that and that’s that and I don’t understand anything anymore. Ha, ha. Nature transforms for a few seconds, but then everything settles back, the oily slop of a swamp coagulating. There are no more epiphanies. What use is it all when you’re treading water just to keep going. When life has been reduced to its basic elements, shit, piss, blood and milk?
My novel Black Figs explores dark impulses that threaten to destroy relationships and even lives on a summer break in Italy. Bad parenting, unrequited lust, excessive drinking, an obsessive focus on the body; what happens when a woman starts to unravel, when she can’t stop the blackness bubbling up?
It won second prize for Good Housekeeping magazine’s novel competition, 2016.