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THE SLAP AND SHORT OF LOVE
My novel Short of Love (2018) is compared below with ‘The Slap’ by Christos Tsiolkas (2008).
His book is a bestseller and has been made into a movie mini-series (2011). I like the book very much.
Genre of ‘The Slap’ is urban psychological fiction. The genre of Short of Love is fictionalised autobiography in an epic thriller. The two books are similar in that both stories narrate events subsequent to unusual incidents that are pivotal in causing social groups to disintegrate.
The Slap is set in an urban tribe in Melbourne having a microcosm of social ills, family loyalties, passions and dysfunctional relationships. An incident mars a family gathering and the aftermath destabilises their lives.
Short of Love is set in England and Canada, beginning with Tom as a schoolboy and following the threads of his dysfunctional relationship with his crush, Vicki and his career as an engineer and corporate executive until his retirement. Tom is tricked to take a lie detector test and again when he trades Vicki in a ‘short’ deal with a friend, as a commodity to acquire later. The book satirizes conventional love relationships but the strategies backfire disastrously, blowing him and Vicki apart. He gains a top job in Canada but Vicki, a school counsellor, stays in England. On the rebound he marries Ruth, expecting to resume with Vicki later.
The books are pre-occupied with consequences of traumas affecting lives of the characters in unpredictable ways. The reader will be entertained in The Slap by the misbehaviour of suburbanites. Short of Love recounts antics of irrepressible university students in Liverpool in the Beatles era, later as hippies and then as vulnerable obsessive adults in a fast-moving page turner.
Short of Love is an unconventional story recording morals that changed with the times. The focus is on Tom’s relationship with Vicki and it keeps the reader guessing. It is a tantalizing love story with an unexpected ending.
Available from Amazon. Reviews at https://martinknox.com
SHORT OF LOVE
This book is a page-turning biofiction spanning decades from Beatlemania oil to international oil industry hegemony. Tom wants Vicki, but she plays hard to get and he puts her aside for later. He is diverted by a relationship with someone else, by having children and by an ambitious career as a CEO overseas. Events don’t work out the way he plans, but after the children have left home, he tries to revive his relationship with Vicki. Will he be able to get back with her? Short of Love is a novel that satirises dealing in love as a commodity short, with insights into a relationship where a man tries to reduce his vulnerability to love that adversely affects his career. This is an action-packed story in the UK, Canada and Africa with ethical and humanitarian dilemmas.
See excerpt and reviews https://martinknox.com
Short of Love
Short of Love is a satirical fiction novel telling of Tom’s loves and career from school, university, oilfield engineering to Chief Executive Officer of an international oil company. He falls for Vicki in an agonising love story when he is studying hard and tries to put her off until later, like in a commodity short. They are brought together in an African country and oppose famine and exploitation. It is a fast-moving page-turning love story from the Beatles era to recent times.
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If her teasing is misandry, would his philandering be misogyny?
REVIEW EXCERPT BY EDITOR OF NOVEL ‘SHORT OF LOVE’, BY MARTIN KNOX
Another reason you won’t be falling asleep is – well, it’s unconventional. In fact, that’s kind of why Martin brought me in on the task. I think initially there was an idea of my offering a ‘solution’ to the complete incompatibility of the outlook of the novel with any notions of gender equality. This, I have not done. The book in itself cannot have such a ‘solution’. Instead, it is itself a gigantic question, posed in novel form. Now, I think my views and Martin’s views on this are, to this day, not quite on a level. My belief is that we, as societies, still do not have the full page open on the gender equality debate, and a work such as this helps to do so. Those of you who would consider yourselves feminists, read it, and see what it tells you about the motives and insecurities that lead to misogyny, and you’ll be forced to consider what, if anything, might be done to eradicate those. Those of you who consider yourselves non or anti-feminists, read it and see whether this is a vision you would agree with in any way, or not, and why. If you don’t give much of a toss about the gender equality debate one way or the other, read it, because it’s something different, and it’ll make you laugh, and possibly check the prescription of your reading glasses.
Full review here: http://www.martinknox.wordpress.com
