My AGE 10+ series - book 1 "Z"
Z
Z is based in the mid-late 1980s with hints of World War Two. It focuses on the fragile relationship between father and son.
Z feels trapped but he finally finds the courage to walk away. He′s on a train to London St Pancras.
The carriages are alive with gossip. He′s happy and free and then, he′s lying frozen on the ground. His nightmare at home "morphs" into another nightmare.
Seriously injured, he winds up in a mental institution. Always pushing people away. People that are trying to control him. First, it′s his father.
Somehow from the mockery that is his life, he starts writing his own story. A message to the world.
He hides away with his cranky old typewriter, barely existing, fighting himself and generally refusing any offers of kindness until...
But then he bangs his head. His pretty, crazy head in some stupid accident days before...
Cruelly and irrationally, and with swirling images of his past, he erupts.
The media circus swarms around him. Everyone′s looking for answers. Pointing the finger. Questions are raised at the highest level.
As his trusted doctor eases away his pain in his dying days, an old, wise colleague delivers a disturbing diagnosis no one wants to know.
But in the end, are we better off not knowing?
Author′s comments
Originally written on a train to London in 1984
Translated also into French
Revised & rewritten 2018