Regardless, I needed to put it all down. I needed to get it off my chest. I have carried it for too long. But the point hasn’t only been to confess. It’s also been to compose a tribute, to you. You did not bend or break. You did not flag or fail. I envy you and admire you and idolise you. Even if I never find you, I hope you find this, or that this finds you. But the truth of the matter is, I may never know, and that you don’t need to know. My weakness couldn’t stop you. This is all in your past. Your future – the future you fought for, and earned – is wherever you are now with Gogol, living in your new home, sharing your new name, carrying on with your new life, leaving behind your old self, and this story.
acknowledgements
The support I’ve received throughout the development of this project has been tremendous, and I’m grateful and indebted to a number of people. Thank you very much to early readers Carly, Francesca, Jeremy, Katherine, Marilyn, Rebecca, and Richard; to Becky for your constant belief and guidance, and Hélène for being such a staunch advocate of this story; to Candida for your compassion and understanding, as well as Corinne, Emma, Lauren, Anna B., Dawn and all the good people of team Myriad; to Anna M., for designing another standout cover; to Blanka for the help with translation; to Vicki, a truly exceptional and gifted editor; and to Naomi, who has shown me the meaning of courage.
Sign up to our mailing list at
www.myriadeditions.com
Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
about the author
TYLER KEEVIL grew up in Vancouver and moved to Wales in his twenties. He is the author of three previous novels, including The Drive, as well as the story collection Burrard Inlet. His short fiction has appeared in a wide range of magazines and anthologies, and he has won a number of awards for his writing, most notably The Missouri Review’s Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize, the Wales Book of the Year People’s Choice Award, and the Writers’ Trust McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize. He is the director of the MA in Creative Writing at Cardiff University.
Copyright
First published in 2020 by
Myriad Editions
www.myriadeditions.com
Myriad Editions
An imprint of New Internationalist Publications
The Old Music Hall, 106–108 Cowley Rd,
Oxford OX4 1JE
First printing
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Copyright © Tyler Keevil 2020
The moral right of the author has been asserted
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN (hardback): 978–1–912408–62–7
ISBN (ebook): 978–1–912408–63–4
Designed and typeset in Palatino
by www.twenty-sixletters.com
Printed and bound in Great Britain
by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A
MORE FROM TYLER KEEVIL
The Drive
by Tyler Keevil
A fast-paced and hilarious contemporary odyssey, The Drive has all the adventure and surrealism of Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas – but overlaid with heartfelt yearning and hope.
A single call from his Czech girlfriend catapults Trevor into a serious crisis. Desperate to get his mojo back, he blazes down Highway 99 in a rented Dodge Neon.
But soon his journey to California is fraught with peril, and all he has for protection are a semi-automatic pistol, his trusty plastic visor and a flea-ridden cat. As the drugs and the heartbreak kick in, the question is no longer whether Trevor will get over his girlfriend’s infidelity, but whether he’ll get out alive.
‘Keevil’s raucous second novel… you’re happy to have joined [Trevor] for the ride.’
– Financial Times
‘Follows in the dust trails of the great American road trip… the humour and vim with which each scene is set up helps illuminate this half-innocent, half-demented take on the world.’
– Litro
‘Keevil is such an accomplished and confident stylist – inventive, engaging, casually hilarious – he never loses the reader for a second… [The Drive] is quite a trip.’
– New Welsh Review
MORE FICTION FROM MYRIAD
The Kennedy Moment
by Peter Adamson
The Bead Collector
by Sefi Atta
With her signature subtlety and wit, Sefi Atta examines a brief but profound friendship, and one Nigerian mother’s yearning – amid legacies of conflict and uncertainty – to help build her country from home. This is an international espionage tale with the intrigue and politics of family life brought to the fore.
To the Volcano and Other Stories
by Elleke Boehmer
A thrilling new collection of short stories tracks lives across continents from the perspective of the southern hemisphere – its light, its seas, its sensibilities. These are stories of people caught up in a world that tilts seductively, sometimes dangerously, between south and north, and ambition and tradition.
MORE FICTION FROM MYRIAD
Magnetism
by Ruth Figgest
Mother and daughter Caroline and Erica are the best of friends and worst of enemies. Their story unfolds against fifty years of sweeping social change in America. Feisty and funny, they roll with the punches and survive car crashes, awkward family gatherings, relationship disasters, and plastic surgery.
We Go Around in the Night and Are Consumed by Fire
by Jules Grant
Voiced by Donna and her streetwise god-daughter, Aurora, Jules Grant’s thrillingly original crime novel unfolds at breakneck speed – at once furious, tender and heartbreaking. ‘A brilliant and gritty contemporary gangster lesbian revenge thriller.’ – Gay’s the Word bookshop
The Last Pilot
by Benjamin Johncock
In this award-winning debut the thrill and excitement of the space race are re-ignited through the story of one man’s courage in the face of unthinkable loss. Jim Harrison is offered a place in history as one of the world’s first astronauts, but when his young family is thrown into crisis he is faced with a life-changing decision.
MORE FICTION FROM MYRIAD
Miss Laila, Armed and Dangerous
by Manu Joseph
This gripping novel poses searching questions about political forces and religious division – with an ingenious twist. Pervasive in its comic realism, wicked in its humour and broad-based in its canvas, this is a fierce, profound and illuminating portrait of our age of globalisation and populist politics.
We Are Made of Earth
by Panos Karnezis
This timely story of refugee arrival on a foreign shore opens when an overcrowded dinghy capsizes at sea. The doctor and the boy he saves wash up on a tiny Greek island, where they are offered shelter by the owner of a small travelling circus, and await an endlessly deferred ferry to continue their journey.
I Have Waited and You Have Come
by Martine McDonagh
Rachel fends for herself in a country brought to its knees, only venturing beyond the safety of her storm wall when supplies dwindle – until her one contact with the outside world draws her into a dangerous game. Sensual and sinister, this is a story of obsession and survival in a climate-changed world.
MORE FICTION FROM MYRIAD
North Facing
by Tony Peake
An exquisitely realised story that revisits a seminal boyhood moment as it plays out – with unexpected and sinister consequences – against the backdrop of political upheaval in South Africa. ‘This beautiful, moving novel is vast in how much it recounts and how deeply it makes us feel.’ – Edmund White
Belonging
by Umi Sinha
Lila Langdon is twelve years old when she witnesses a family tragedy after her mother unveils her father’s surprise birthday present – a tragedy that ends her childhood in India and precipitates a new life in Sussex with her great-aunt Wilhelmina. An intense, compelling and finely wrought epic.
Genie and Paul
by Natasha Soobramanien
An utterly original love story: the story of a sister’s love for a lost brother, and the story of his love for an island that has never really existed.
‘A vibrant postcolonial response to Paul et Virginie… The myriad tales layer over the source material to create a rich fictional tapestry.’ – Wasifiri