The Book I Might Have Written.

A bright little boy. A poor background. Scholarships. Boarding school. Cambridge. A girl. Obsession. Mental hospitals. Death. Does that all have the makings of a good book? Fiction of course! Could it be real? Well it was and is real. It is the book I wrote.

Yet that is not the only book with all those elements. There is another book. It has quite rightly sold many thousands more copies than my humble effort. That book is Sebastian Faulks' "Engleby". I read it a couple of years ago at the recommendation of my sister Miriam. She would not tell me anything about it other than you will understand. For "Engleby" is the book I might have written had my life had a more tragic course to it. My book has a happy ending, his does not.

So why mention it today? Well an academic I know who lives in Cambridge reluctantly asked me about it today. I guess his reluctance was for the same reason. It is my story. Strange how the imagination of a very successful author can create something so real to life without ever meeting it's true embodiment. I will never be a successful writer. Some say my books inspire. To me they are just my life in all its meagre detail. Does that make me vain? Or the narcissist of allegation and fiction? Others must decide that. When an old friend contacted me out of the blue just before Christmas I told her I hoped I was no longer as self obsessed as I was when I knew her. I hope I'm right.

Time marches and we will see what happens next in the story. It will I guarantee not have the same ending as Faulks' creation in such a dark novel.

I Heard a Voice.