Broken Places

You may love Eric - or want to shake him! Passionately idealistic about his work as a librarian, and his mission to extend literacy and literature into the wider community, he’s also ruefully aware that he’s not exactly Superman. Forced to hide his mysterious background and his mortifying fears, he’s a man with secrets - withheld even from close friends. His once homely wife, now a fashionista, has abandoned him, to live in Seattle with a high-powered corporate kingpin; taking their only child, a moody minx-in-waiting, about to turn thirteen.

Yet, against the odds, Eric sets out to prove himself - indeed, even to find a soul-mate. Whether braving choco-luv Speed-Dating (chocolates provided, but is he a hard nut or a melting cream?); running Wandsworth Prison readers’ groups; attending an American Church that champions the Gospel of Prosperity, or rescuing his daughter from near-rape - he finally comes to epitomize the truth of Hemingway’s words: “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.”