The Full Ridiculous. Mark Lamprell

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The Full Ridiculous - Mark Lamprell


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      Copyright © 2014 by Mark Lamprell

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

      First published in 2013 by The Text Publishing Company, Australia

      Typeset in Granjon 13/18 by J & M Typesetting

      Cover design by WH Chong

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Lamprell, Mark.

      The full ridiculous : a novel / Mark Lamprell.

      pages cm

      ISBN 978-1-61902-394-9 (eBook)

      1. Life change events—Fiction. 2. Middle-aged men—Fiction. 3. Families—Fiction. I. Title.

      PS3612.A547445F95 2014

      813'.6—dc23

      2013044836

      SOFT SKULL PRESS

      An imprint of COUNTERPOINT

      1919 Fifth Street

      Berkeley, CA 94710

       www.softskull.com

       www.counterpointpress.com

      Distributed by Publishers Group West

      10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      Contents

       Chapter 11

       Chapter 12

       Chapter 13

       Chapter 14

       Chapter 15

       Chapter 16

       Chapter 17

       Chapter 18

       Chapter 19

       Chapter 20

       Chapter 21

       Chapter 22

       Chapter 23

       Chapter 24

       Chapter 25

       Chapter 26

       Chapter 27

       Chapter 28

       Chapter 29

       Chapter 30

       Chapter 31

       Chapter 32

       Acknowledgments

       About the Author

       for Klay

      a love song of sorts, my darling girl.

      Halfway through a ten-kilometre run, you have yet another premonition that you’re hit by a car while jogging so you decide to outwit the fates by changing course, heading down Hastings Road instead of up it. Rather than risk the usual dash across the intersection, you wait at the pedestrian crossing for a sleek green four-wheel drive to pass on your right. Summer is toppling into autumn but it’s still hot and you wipe the sweat from your forehead with the back of your hand. Looking left, you see an old blue sedan approaching and make eye contact with the driver who is lit by a flash of early-morning sun. You stride confidently onto the crossing and almost reach the other side of the road when, out of the corner of your left eye, you see something blue.

      The blue sedan.

      It’s less than a body length away, and it’s not stopping.

      Time slows, just like in the movies, which is ironic because you work in the movies. Well, not in the movies, around the movies; you write about movies, ‘clever’ features poking fun at filmmakers who may not be creative geniuses but at least they’ve had a go which is more than you can say for some joggers

       which is why you have this self-loathing thing going

       which is why you overeat

       which makes you overweight

       which gives you borderline high


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