I have included new stuff here, so not necessarily a repeat post...I hope...Ric...please. Lol.
I am pushing this out before Christmas in the hope that it will generate further interest and push me over my one and only sales target. Is it lucrative? Nope. I never wrote this thing for money, and in total, I will make enough to fund a good night out and a damned good meal, nothing more. It is self-published with all the work, the editing, etc, done by me, the author. My nephew designed the rather fetching cover. Amazon determines the pricing. I am not famous, so why would anyone want to read it? Well, all the feedback I have had describes how people like the writing style and that it is as funny as I intended. This makes me happy.
I usually encourage folk to go for the cheaper eBook/Kindle option, which should not phase anyone. It is an instant download, readable on any device, your phone included, and is a permanent possession, of course.
The book, simply put, diarises my memories of growing up in Coventry in the 1970s, going away to college, and then the rollercoaster that has been my adult life. Black Dog is a metaphor, often used by people to describe depression. I bend this ‘rule’ a little and use it to bring to life a lifelong anxiety condition and how one might put together a seemingly ordinary existence despite the challenges brought by suffering from such a condition. I use my passion for football to lend the story a structured timeline, nothing more. I try to steer away from lengthy, grinding descriptions about football matches, as I know this might put off the would-be reader, instead describing the crazy stuff that happened at the games. I keep these bits quite brief. They can be ignored and the story will retain an order.
A few further excerpts not in date order:
…I leapt up and headed upstairs, taking six stairs at a time, where our two-year-old was asleep, noting flames bursting in through the front door, great tongues of fire surging through the letter box. It was a firebomb, a Molotov cocktail, according to the police, who arrived with the fire brigade after one of the many horrified neighbours had called…
…Back at the house, with the new ‘for sale’ sign a totem of a broken marriage, I sat on the bottom of the stairs for an hour, intermittently staring at myself and my Black Dog in the mirror, talking myself into a new depression, and holding my head in my hands, in tears. I was a right mess. Looking at it now, with years of experience to inform my thinking, I suspect that back in that shitty summer of 1986, I could not accept the destruction of a family I loved. Even now, when I look at pictures of my parents' happier years, I wonder how it came to the end that it did. How do these things happen? In 1986, it almost destroyed me…
…I banged on the door, and when the guy answered, I fell into the hallway as if I were a felled tree, crawling a little way into the hall on my hands and knees, making animal noises of some kind, which sounds hilarious, I know. I slumped against a wall and, in between farmyard impressions, asked for an ambulance, my heart pounding at an horrific rate. Standing above me, looking down at me, were four friendly faces, smiling what were the smiles of care and concern. They were a completely normal family, a black family, looking down at this lunatic white boy who had just fallen into their house, making donkey noises or similar, begging for medical assistance - on a Friday night. They could have thrown me out on my arse, but they didn’t…
…He dropped me off, as he promised, and I found the check-in desk only to be told that there was a five-hour delay. So, spiralling into my anxiety abyss with the reality of five more hours nailed on to an already intolerable and extended nightmare, I asked if there were any medical facilities, which, to my amazement, there were. Not only that, but the nurse was also delightful, Scottish, and seemed to understand what I was telling her, giving me tea and biscuits out of sympathy, I think…
…My mobile rang. It was Dad. 'Have you heard?' he said, clearly triple buzzing about something massive. I had not, what with it being day one of this awful job that I didn't want at all, you know, I would hardly be watching the telly, would I? 'City are the richest club in the world…some rich prince from Abu Dhabi has bought us, it's all over the bloody news…
Thank you for any interest.
City & Me: A tale of a boy, a man, a football club, and his Black Dog. eBook : Rennie, Michael: Amazon.co.uk: Books
www.amazon.co.uk
View attachment 175954
