Electricity is a Podcasted Novel by Myke Bartlett, author of "How to Disappear Completely." A new chapter appears every Tuesday.
Myke Bartlett is an author who has lived in a variety of places but calls Melbourne home for now.
How to Disappear Completely blog
How to Disappear Completely Official Site
April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007 October 2007 December 2007 September 2008 June 2009
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Photograph of Battersea Power Station copyright Ade Rowbotham |
Electricity: a podcasted novel by myke bartlett
1999
Aston Somerfield, casual smoker and part-time alcoholic, has come to London to find himself. He knows who he's looking for, he's seen him on the cover of the NME. Drawn across oceans by fame and fate, Aston is keeping his diary empty to make sure he's available. Won't commit to anything until it's everything.
London, however, has other ideas.
When a virtual stranger calls Aston a few hours before his death, fate catches up with him, derailing his barely-made plans. Amid a hundred boozy evenings and romantic deadends, a mystery unfurls.
Equally assisted and hindered by tremulous accountant Tom Hensley and dedicated loafer Steven Black, Aston uncovers a different London, one of murder, ghosts, dangerous emails and the second big bang.
As chaotic and random as the city it inhabits, Electricity gradually evolves into a mystery bigger than the universe itself. Being of a somewhat useless persuasion, Aston does his best to ignore it.
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E N T R I E S
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Chapter 5: The Same Deep Water As Me
A shorter chapter this week, which will prove the exception rather than the rule.
There are probably more true moments in this chapter than any other, although most of "Electricity" has some basis in fact. Steven and Tom are exaggerated versions of my two closest friends from London, although their darker moments are my own. In truth, I don't have a bad word to say about either of them.
It's an unusual position to be in, reading something that is acutely part-memoir and part-fantasy. "How to Disappear Completely" held no such discomfort. "Electricity" brings a constant fear of causing offence, but it's not something that can really be indulged. No-one wants to read (or hear) a timid story. Still, I hope it's evident how much I care about these characters. Even Aston...
Labels: Aston, chapter blurb, podcast, Steven
2 Comments:
These characters are real to me, I can tell because I worry about their grasshopper ways, never worrying about the future.
