I should add that this may be in part due to the formatting issues in my review copy, which often made the writing more fractured than intended). The casual queerness was nice but wasn’t a fan of the casual homophobia and the character constantly vomiting everywhere.

The Gallopers of the books title refers to the centrepoint of many are travelling fair both, and now the big horses roundabout . he felt like a real three-dimensional person, and his struggles, with his sexuality and together with the grief, following the loss of his mother in the flood felt very real. I loved the way this book was written—a rich character study that ingrained itself deeply within the protagonist's mind.Griefcast is hosted by Cariad Lloyd, edited by Kate Holland, recorded remotely in Cariad's living room, artwork is by Jayde Perkin, stop motion social media clips by Alice Loveday and the music is provided by The Glue Ensemble. It is a novel about Joe Gunner and his life and experiences as a working class child, adolescent and young man dealing with everything that growing up in a decaying fishing town in Norfolk.

Joe talks to the water, and the water answers, but the prose is filled with descriptions of the salt marshes and the dykes, the river and the sea, and the trawlers bringing home the shellfish catch. As the novel’s first-person narrator, Joe’s story is also told in a non-linear fashion perfectly consistent with the young man’s befuddled nature. I loved the idea of a book like Allan Sillitoe or Thomas Mcguane but with a gay MC, but I bounced hard off of the structure. He developed The Whale Tattoo at Arvon Fiction: Work in Progress retreat,after winning a place on the 2018 Arts Council England TLC Free Read Scheme.That means that with every subscription, we are supporting people in poverty to get back on their own two feet. With the repetitive use of some phrases and jumping from scene to scene seemingly randomly the whole story seemed chaotic and much of the time impossible to follow. I can honestly say that I've never read anything quite like it and I have read a lot of books over the years. Right from the start there is crudeness and a constant barrage of swearing from the first-person narrator – totally justified in my opinion, and I am someone who doesn’t swear.

Despite this, it is worth persisting, and I suspect, it's a book that needs to be read more than once. Soon, the love that they each have in their lives overflows into hate that may very well destroy them. Nevertheless, it’s an excellent depiction of life, love, and loss for a young working class gay man in a run down area of Britain. Haunted by the nagging water of the river and an ominous beached whale, Joe finds love in the form of a local fisherman named Tim Fysh.The story is mostly focused at a single point in a young gay man’s life during a particular hot summer, following the famous flood.