Joshua Spassky
This is the title of the 3rd book by Gwendoline Riley that I'm reading. I like it but I like everything that she's written. She's a talented young thing (though turning 30 this year). I just love her idiosyncratic characters, and their views about isolation and lonelines and long bus trips and elderly relatives and the futility of life and the desperation that creeps in and the misanthropic nature of book lovers.
Reminds me of eavesdropping at festivals or bus trips. Always remember catching the Greenhill Road bus from the hills and reading over the shoulder of an elderly lady wearing a jaunty felt trilby. Her companion had written a letter, admiring the "red red dust" of an outback trip. Oh, I love interesting quirky and bohemian old people!
Current characters? Not much really. Have been having a few encounters with my bike riding. Last week had to get the guy in lycra from my local cafe to help me pump up my flat tyre. He took over: stripped the tyre, replaced the tube, pumped it up and even interviewed me, colonel style, about my job and rank. I recognised lycra guy as having a very healthy ego, and suspect he thinks that I now think he's an absolute legend and man god. My other character is the helpful young guy at the bike shop, who attempts to grow a goatee and blushes when he talks to me. He's my favourite, I have what Curtis Sittenfield calls a retail slash hospitality crush and what another friend calls a proximity crush and what another friend would concernedly consider a sign that I've fallen out with Mr Right but what I am quite happy to call a boredom threshold option.
Reminds me of eavesdropping at festivals or bus trips. Always remember catching the Greenhill Road bus from the hills and reading over the shoulder of an elderly lady wearing a jaunty felt trilby. Her companion had written a letter, admiring the "red red dust" of an outback trip. Oh, I love interesting quirky and bohemian old people!
Current characters? Not much really. Have been having a few encounters with my bike riding. Last week had to get the guy in lycra from my local cafe to help me pump up my flat tyre. He took over: stripped the tyre, replaced the tube, pumped it up and even interviewed me, colonel style, about my job and rank. I recognised lycra guy as having a very healthy ego, and suspect he thinks that I now think he's an absolute legend and man god. My other character is the helpful young guy at the bike shop, who attempts to grow a goatee and blushes when he talks to me. He's my favourite, I have what Curtis Sittenfield calls a retail slash hospitality crush and what another friend calls a proximity crush and what another friend would concernedly consider a sign that I've fallen out with Mr Right but what I am quite happy to call a boredom threshold option.
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