J. T. Lawrence, The Memory of Water (Pulp Books 2016)
The theme starts out ordinary enough. Hitherto rich and successful writer Slade Harris is now in a slump. With two successful novels under his belt, he’s in an unshakable writer’s block. Publisher and creditors are at the gates. Hitherto successfully promiscuous, he’s beginning to realise that short-lived affairs aren’t bringing him happiness. But there is one woman who seems to matter.
That’s where ordinary stops. We expect him to plan to propose to her. Instead, he plans to murder her.
Such a remedy for writer’s block, if believable, would really require quite an aberrant psychology, and Slade has a childhood tragedy he keeps close to his chest. Plus, he has Mommy issues. Hang on, not really. He only means to use it as the storyline in his novel, an exercise designed to unblock the muse.
From here the plot becomes ever more tangled (no spoilers), and Slade careens into deeper self-examination, finally reaching an epiphany. The conclusion is brilliant, with twists and then twists upon twists, a big surprise.
At various points during the tale, we’re unsure as to whether Slade is really experiencing this, or whether he is imagining it. With some novels, I might consider this a defect, but here, it seems to match the theme. Slade is looking both for a more real experience of his own life and for a fresh, new fictional inspiration for his novel.
There’s anything ordinary about the writing. It’s rich, innovative and full of wry humour. The protagonist keeps likening himself to Jay Gatsby, but I kept being reminded of the wit, word-skill and characters of Tom Wolfe.
Susie Helme 
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