NEW BOOK RELEASE
'What Will Happen To You?'
A Novel by Gary N. Lines
A dark comedy about a reluctant accountant who wishes he was someone else, doing something else, being somewhere else, but who, what and where?
We track Robbie Carton's descent from his mind- numbing accounting job to...? Well, something else probably, but before that, he has to escape his life, the tarantula, Paris, an office full of absurdity, the outback, wheelie bins and of course, Bentley, Robbie's boss and natural enemy according to Robbie. Even if he manages all that, will he ever find a way to tell Sophie he loves her?
What Will Happen To You? is funny, complex, intriguing, and a mystery in the same way that the meaning of life is a mystery - assuming, of course, that life has meaning. According to Gary it might not. The novel asks penetrating questions, like 'how do you throw your boomerang away when it's reached the end of its usefulness', or 'what’s the point of a colander when it leaks like a sieve'. Stuff like that. You will follow the life of Robbie Carton, accountant, writer, existentialist, and a drunk, albeit functioning, just. He might also be a romantic, not that he’d admit that.
Doing Life in Paradise explores the impact and ripple effect of trauma on a group of strangers inextricably linked by, and witness to a tragic accident.
The novel is a surreal voyeuristic journey into the minds and lies of its larger than life characters, each trapped in their own struggle for survival and redemption. Ruby hopes for love, but her destiny is controlled by a malicious spider.
Peter laments the loss of love, but prefers to discuss it with Mr Dishwasher. Madeleine discovers rapture while counting down her periods. Hawkey knows if you lie to your psychologist, you are still telling the truth. Tommy is a killer. And Flat 5 lady is beyond saving.
Through the eyes of its flawed characters, and clipped acerbic prose Doing Life in Paradise exposes the absurdity of life, and dependence on hope to find meaning within life’s disinterest. But how can life in a city called Paradise feel anything but cruelly ironic, how can it not be anything but a life sentence?
The novel explores the peculiar places life can take us, while exposing the curious strategies we each employ in order to survive.
