Book author: Paul Blaney

The novel opens as Fred Pooley returns to London for the first time in six years. He’s been living in Hong Kong doing nothing much more than work. When spontaneous bouts of crying force him to reconsider his life, he returns to England to try to understand and expunge the gaping hole he feels inside.

He seeks new occupations – writing workshops, a pretty woman – but can’t help reconnecting with his first love, Sally, even though it was their break-up that sent him to Hong Kong six years ago. She now has a daughter and this starts Fred thinking about what it would have been like if they’d had a child of their own and a desire to be a parent, something Fred would never have believed he was capable of before (especially as he persuaded Sally to have an abortion), begins to overwhelm him. He is plagued by a sense of missed opportunity.

All those years ago Fred donated sperm to a clinic, what if his sperm had been used to create children? If there were children running around with Fred’s DNA inside their cells shouldn’t he know about it? Wouldn’t he have some responsibility for their well being? Shouldn’t he look in on them if he could?

And then the pretty woman gets him a job working for a fertility firm, the same company Fred visited all those years ago…

Add the complications of a mother Fred doesn’t want to contact and a Father who deserted him before he was even born, and Mister Spoonface becomes a novel that takes a deep hard look not only at what it means to be a father or a parent, but what it means to be alive at all. That gaping hole Fred feels isn’t just about reproduction, it’s about making sense of the world in whatever way humans can.

The perfect novel for book club debate, Mister Spoonface is a quick and provocative read that forces the reader to question their own assumptions about parenthood, reproduction and the responsibility involved in forging and maintaining emotional connections. As we follow Fred Pooley’s journey into obsession, we are forced to look deep into ourselves.

Next week I’m reading Asking For It by Louise O’Neill. I’ve built up a rather large list of books I want to read while I’ve been taking a break from blogging, but it is fun to be back and great to start with Paul Blaney’s novel. I hope to interview him in a few weeks for Authors QH. I’ll keep you posted.

It took me a couple of pages to get into The Anchoress by Paul Blaney, but as soon as I found my bearings, oddly just as the main character, Maggie, did, I was hooked. I wanted to read until I’d read it all.

This is the story of a woman who crawls into her walk-in wardrobe one day, turns off all the lights, and doesn’t stray beyond her bathroom until she has figured out why she crawled in there in the first place. The novel begins with a dream of the past and ends with dreams of the future, a future unclouded by delusions Maggie created for herself when her mother died.

Not only is The Anchoress touching and believable it is also full of beautiful gems about the reason for reading in the first place. ‘Storytellers, writers,’ Maggie says, ‘they all use bits of their lives, stitch them together. You don’t ask which parts are true and which are made up. Stories aim at a higher truth, whatever serves the story best, whatever works.’ As she struggles to figure out her own story, so are we encouraged to question the truths we allow to dominate our own lives.

This is a beautiful little book. What a shame that Independent publishers, who are the ones usually brave enough to publish work like this, have such an upward struggle when it comes to getting their books out there. We need to help them and get books on bestseller lists through word of mouth alone. The Anchoress is only available as an e-book, so if you don’t have an e-reader of some kind, get one and read The Anchoress. You won’t regret it.