Released 5th June 2014 Author Q&A J. B. Morrison 1. Why did you decide to make your protagonist 81 years old? I was spending a lot of time with my mother, who was 81 at the time. Like Frank, she lived on her own in a first-floor flat in a small Sussex village. People were always telling her to get her roof fixed even though there was nothing noticeably wrong with it. She was getting a lot of junk mail too and annoying telephone cold calls. I wanted to write about that in some way. 2. Who is the inspiration for Kelly Christmas? She’s entirely fictional, although because Kelly is the same age as my daughter, that hopefully helped me not make her completely unbelievable. 3. What do you hope readers will take away from your novel? If they’re entertained and amused and moved by it that would be nice. Perhaps they’ll telephone their parents or grandparents just to ask them how they are. 4. Do you have any favourite books or authors? A lot of American and North American authors. Chuck Palahniuk, Kurt Vonnegut, Dave Eggers, Douglas Coupland, Cormac McCarthy and Brady Udall. 5. How did you become an author? It was an accident. I had a fairly long career in pop music and wrote an autobiographical account of that. Having the book published was such a genuine thrill that I wanted to write more. I’ve been very lucky being able to somehow follow one pretty dream occupation with another. Available now from Amazon Product Description -The story of the pensioner, the milk float and the miracle worker Frank Derrick is eighty-one. And he’s just been run over by a milk float. It was tough enough to fill the hours of the day when he was active. But now he’s broken his arm and fractured his foot, it looks set to be a very long few weeks ahead. Frank lives with his cat Bill (which made more sense before Ben died) in the typically British town of Fullwind-on-Sea. The Villages in Bloom competition is the topic of conversation amongst his neighbours but Frank has no interest in that. He watches DVDs, spends his money frivolously at the local charity shop and desperately tries to avoid the cold callers continuously knocking on his door. Emailing his daughter in America on the library computer and visiting his friend Smelly John used to be the highlights of his week. Now he can’t even do that. Then a breath of fresh air comes into his life in the form of Kelly Christmas, home help. With her little blue car and appalling parking, her cheerful resilience and ability to laugh at his jokes, Kelly changes Frank’s life. She reminds him that there is a big wide-world beyond the four walls of his flat and that adventures, however small, come to people of all ages. Frank and Kelly’s story is sad and funny, moving, familiar, uplifting. It is a small and perfect look at a life neither remarkable nor disastrous, but completely extraordinary nonetheless. For fans of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry this is a quirky, life affirming story that has enormous appeal. And it’s guaranteed to make you laugh.
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