September 2015 Debut of the Month.
Greg is a schizophrenic teenager who also suffers from arachnophobia. He has a lisp, a problem talking and is badly bullied at school, nicknamed ‘Psycho’. He becomes obsessed with a girl, Alice, who has a drunken father and Greg dreams of running away with her. Greg’s English teacher, who has had a traumatic childhood herself, wants to help him and suggests he keeps a private journal. He uses this journal as if writing to Alice. He was diagnosed aged six when he, in an attempt to move numerous ‘phantom’ spiders from his four-year sister, clawed her until she bled. We learn this in transcripts of interviews with a detective trying to gather facts, so we know something dreadful has happened. The interviews intersperse the first-person narrative of the journal. It is an atmospheric, chilling read of mental illness. Very sad. ~ Sarah Broadhurst
| Primary Genre | Modern and Contemporary Fiction |
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Finding love - in any of its forms - and nurturing it. Miss Hayes has a new theory. She thinks my condition's caused by some traumatic incident from my past I keep deep-rooted in my mind. As soon as I come clean I'll flood out all these tears and it'll all be ok and I won't be scared of Them anymore. The truth is I can't think of any single traumatic childhood incident to tell her. I mean, there are plenty of bad memories - Herb's death, or the time I bit the hole in my tongue, or Finners Island, out on the boat with Sarah - but none of these are what caused the phobia. I've always had it. It's Them. I'm just scared of Them. It's that simple.
Alice and the Fly features in the following genres: Modern and Contemporary Fiction, Books with reviews by our Reader Review Panel, Debut Books of the Month, Family Drama, eBooks of the Month, General Fiction, Fiction, Recommendations, Romance / Relationship Stories
Alice and the Fly is available in Paperback, Hardback
Alice and the Fly was written by James Rice and published by Hodder Paperback an imprint of Hodder & Stoughton General Division
Alice and the Fly has 323 pages
